


Of Reddest Stolen Cherries

by Words_instead



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Community: kradamadness, Dragons, M/M, foodporn, so ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Words_instead/pseuds/Words_instead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kris runs an inter-dimensional cafe!</p><p>Kris <i>doesn't know he runs an inter-dimensional cafe.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Reddest Stolen Cherries

**Author's Note:**

> Written for akaVertigo's prompt: **_Would You Like Some FGRSD#R%AS With That?_** _Kris owns an interdimensional cafe! The mythological, the chimerical, the unbelievable--all are welcome to pick a favorite brew or cuddle up with a cranberry crumpet. And getting the ever friendly smile from the every friendly owner is always a boost. It's charming! It's warm! It's sweet! It's...got one little problem._
> 
>  _Kris_ doesn't know he owns an interdimensional cafe. _At all. He just figures his white beans jam and ginger beer were popular with the punk kids. (And, hey, they are. It's just that the punk kids are goblins.) Really, he's so darn pleased to actually have customer at his hole-in-the-wall location along with a reliable staff--sure, Katy put "elven handmaiden" on her resume, but this is LA and what's an odd sense of humor compared to someone willing to work weekends--that he never bothers to worry. And, okay, yeah, some of his regulars are a little...colorful but Kris wasn't raised to stare. Or judge._  
>     
>  _He does wonder what someone as sweet as Adam did to deserve being called Dragon but, hey, there's that LA humor again..._
> 
> _(Oh, and the reason nothing nasty has come through the cafe? Because dragons get really, really pissed if someone messes with their lunch spots. THOU SHALT NOT BITE THE HAND THAT MAKES THE PANCAKES, OKAY? At least not if you want to keep your torso unbroiled...)_

**1\. the dragon**

He's late, which is how he remembers it was a Friday. He's always late Friday mornings. Can't make himself get up any earlier than 5:30 AM but by the time he rolls up at 7:00 the customers are already out the door of the Golden Bakery and down the block, so it's another thirty minutes of waiting before he hands over cash for a box of ginger egg tarts. 

He's knows it's not entirely legit to bring food from the outside to your own cafe, but it's not like he's reselling and, honestly, it's hard to resist. When he finds something he loves he can't imagine _not_ sharing it with as many people as possible. So there is a system in place (Katy snorted when she heard him explaining this to Allison last week; when he demanded the reason he got "Because that makes it sound like self-restraint is involved, which, no," for his trouble.) and according to the System the Golden Bakery is on Fridays. He sticks with different variations of egg tarts for bulk, because they're popular enough that the white cardboard box, discretely propped open by the register, will be emptied before lunchtime. (He's become LA enough that he's technically capable of wasting food, but he swears his mother can _feel_ it every time he does if the note of reproach in her subsequent phone messages is anything to go by.) But that doesn't keep him for buying a few treats for himself. He's stocked the cafe's kitchen with bubble tea mixes, and Allison shrieked aloud when she caught him munching on a moon cake last fall. "Do you know how many calories those have?" she asked as she lunged for it, ineffectively. "That's half your daily allowance! It's heart attack cake!"

For Kris, who grew up in a kitchen where baking was butter-sugar-flour-milk-butter, hands in chewy, springy dough and learning how to wield an icing knife, discovering the Golden Bakery during his first, wretched week in LA was like a revelation. The dense, almost meaty texture of red bean filling his mouth, the salty tang of egg, is like the taste of another language -- a different way of expressing the world. 

So on Fridays he never makes it to the cafe until well after eight, and three weeks after he hired Katy she demanded he either change their official hours or let her open on Fridays because she was tired of waiting on the sidewalk. It's become routine now to roll his car into the small lot tucked against their side exit around 8:30, stepping into a cafe already prepped and serving the morning crowd. He opens the door to the familiar sounds of newspapers rustling and coffee cups idling in saucers, getting a smile from Katy where she's loading a serving tray at an abandoned table as he makes his way behind the register. 

He's got the box of tarts tucked up against one hip and his foot holding the kitchen door open, juggling what's in his hands with the need to reach the office keys and his mind half on greetings tossed his way from customers when he hears Katy. She doesn't gasp, it's aborted before it becomes that: a sharp intake of breath like the preparation for a scream.

And everything in her hands falls, shattering on the linoleum. 

Here's the thing. Katy doesn't drop anything. And that means _anything_ \-- Kris has seen her waltz from behind the register with three tea sets (individual tea pot, cup and saucer) on three separate trays perched on bent arms and a kettle of boiling water in her hand only to trip over a stray purse strap, spin around, and manage to get everything safely on the table. He thinks she trained to be a dancer, because she moves like she's aware of what every muscle in her body is doing at any given time. When he first started interviewing for a waitress (initially only a part-time position, but see how long that lasted), she looked him in the eye and said: "I have absolutely no experience. But I don't break things, and I'll remember whatever you tell me." She said it with such conviction he hired her on the spot. (He's not even sure he got a good look at her application. He thinks it's somewhere in the office. Probably.) 

He's by her side so fast he doesn't even remember what he did with the egg tarts (he finds them later tucked behind a food processor, which: thank goodness), asking "Katy? What's wrong?" Following her gaze out the wide front windows before the words are fully out of his mouth, to see...

He has to squint a little. There's a -- a heat mirage, or maybe a glare from passing cars, because there's a guy across the street. Only sometimes he's there and sometimes he's not, bits of him wavering in and out of existence where he's standing in front of the Polish grocery store. 

Kris blinks a couple times and the guy solidifies nicely, setting off into the road without a glance to the left or right for traffic. There's a shift to his step and a slant to his hip that almost dares people to try and hit him. With each passing second he comes closer, and Kris picks out the details of his outfit: head-to-toe black that mainly serve as a backdrop for the loops and loops of chain across his shoulders and hips, the studs at his knees and toes to make sure you don't miss exactly how those boots encase his legs, whatever's on his fingers to make them shine like claws.

This guy is actually sparkling in the sunlight, Kris thinks, bemused, and he probably would have watched the stranger approach like a kitten fascinated by a piece of foil if Katy hadn't grabbed him above the elbow and yanked him backward into the shade of the cafe. 

He yelps, stumbling, but he wasn't kidding about her coordination and she manages to snag his other arm to haul him upright. He has to laugh, because it's like getting manhandled by a Disney princess, but it dies in his throat the minute he gets a look at her face. 

"Kris," and she sounds _weird_ , she keeps eyeing the window behind him even as her grip tightens. "I need you to go into the kitchen."

"Hey, it's okay," he says, "I was on my way there anyway, sorry for fooling around for so long --"

"I need you to go back to the kitchen and _stay there_ , okay?" She continues as if she hasn't heard. She starts moving backward, finding the route to the kitchen unerringly through the obstacle course of chairs set just awry of their tables even as her eyes never leave his face, and seriously, girl is talented. 

She swings like it's a square dance and gets his back against the kitchen door. He can feel himself falling backwards even as he protests. "Wait a minute -- Katy -- Katy, what the heck is going on?"

He hears the bright rattle of the bells on the zodiac chain hanging on the entrance, swaying as the front door opens. Katy jerks at his shoulders and he blinks to find them almost nose-to-nose.

"I don't care what you hear, or what you think is going on -- you go back there and you don't come out unless I come and get you. Got it?"

Next thing he knows he's facing the big Viking on the opposite wall, the kitchen door bumping gently against his shoulder blades. Usually he can hear a lot of the bustle of daily business from in here, but not right now. Right now he can hear the zodiac chain jingling as the front door settles, and that's... that's it. The whole place has gone quiet. 

_"Don't come out unless I come and get you."_

He palms his wallet and keys out onto an empty stretch of counter top, picks up an order pad from where they're stacked against the wall and tucks it into the back of his jeans as he shoulders out through the kitchen door, thinking: forget _that_.

~~++~~

 

Katy's preoccupied with the newcomer where he's sitting in a corner booth, and just the ramrod line of her back makes Kris tense. Also... it's weird, but he would swear a good two-thirds of the customers are just as nervous, because their eyes keep flicking over to that corner and then back to their plates. A couple of the punkier kids in the back are on their feet -- seriously, who is this guy? Is he some kind of gang lord? L.A. gang lords don't come to niche cafes on a Friday morning, do they? He was also under the impression they were, overall, not very glittery. 

"I don't know how you found me. I don't care," he can barely make out Katy saying as he takes Amy McLaughlin's order (she likes his veggie omelet before her first class at 10:10, and her parents are thrilled she's found a reason to get out of bed her senior year of high school) and that's another thing, she should have noticed him coming out of the kitchen by now. She really should have noticed the moment he stepped over the threshold, she's got a sixth sense about it sometimes, like when he's in the middle of cupcakes and remembers he wants to fiddle with the espresso machine. But today all her attention is fixed on a stranger in black. "Just go. There's nothing for you here." 

"Sorry, princess." Kris's hand tightens around his pen. The guy isn't hitting on her, but there's an undertone of dark amusement Kris just doesn't like. "That's not how it works."

"I'm not going with you."

"Ready to name your champion, then?"

Katy goes white to the lips. "Get out. These people don't deserve this, they don't understand --"

"Is there a problem?"

Katy levitates at least three inches, and Kris tucks the memory of getting the jump on her in the back of his head to crow over. The stranger doesn't even startle. He turns his head, though, and Kris is the one who ends up startling.

Those are some eyes, are all he can come up with after half a heartbeat, and their owner seems aware of it from how they've been overdrawn with black liner with dusky shimmer rubbed into the lids. They blink, and Kris tells himself to close his mouth. 

"Introductions?" It comes out as a weak question as he tries to turn to Katy, but ends up snagging his attention on the guy's mouth, this time. It's... nice. It probably would be more than -- a hell of a lot more than -- if it weren't so sulky, the corners drawn inward and down. He's wearing lip gloss, and Kris feels proud of himself for connecting the soft shine with a beauty product. So... probably not a gang lord, after all. Maybe. 

He has no idea with this town.

"Kris," Katy catches up, "this is..."

"Adam," the guy fills in. He's looking at Kris with a weird sort of focus -- if Kris were at home he'd think the guy was torn between jumping him and, well, jumping him. But he's still not solid on the signals, here, once he ended up with someone's tongue down his throat when he could've sworn they were exchanging insurance info after a fender-bender. 

"I know him from back home," Katy finishes. "... Adam... this is my boss. Kris." 

"Katy does a great job, here," Kris tells Adam. "You can tell everybody on the farm she's taking LA by storm." He rocks back on his heels to give the newcomer the patented Allen 'Aw Shucks,' thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he lays it on thick. Anyone who knows him knows he's not a natural beamer, but he's from the South. He can warmly welcome the crap outta people. 

Adam rears back from it a little, one hand moving to shade his eyes from the onslaught of good cheer. The light catches, and Kris can see he's wearing rings that encase whole fingers like medieval armor, some studded with dark stones. That's going to make handling silverware interesting, he thinks, which reminds him --

"You ready to order?" He brings out his pad with a flourish. "Anything to eat this morning, or just coffee?"

There's a moment where -- hand to his heart -- _the entire cafe_ is gaping at him. But when he turns around everyone is extremely busy with whatever food they neglected for the past five minutes. He shrugs. Looks back at Adam, eyebrow raised. 

Adam blinks. "I wasn't... I just came into talk to," he gestures at Katy, the movement surprisingly languid given the amount of unyielding metal on that hand, "I didn't want --"

"Nonsense," Kris chirps, and dials up the charm another notch. Adam _flinches_ \-- as well he should, this is the Southerner's version of a rattlesnake's rattle. This guy thinks he can walk in here, terrorize the place, bully Kris's best friend, and walk out without even buying a bagel? Kris will feed him until he can't even _think_ about giving tiny blonde waitresses a hard time. Just because he looks like that, and moves like that, guy thinks he can come to people's jobs and... looking like that...

Eyes on the prize, Kris.

"What should I get?" Adam sounds, if not exactly meek, a bit more subdued. His mouth begins to uncurl from that near-snarl. 

"There's always pancakes," Kris suggests, because, okay. He's not a chef, but he's a good cook and he knows the rules: good ingredients, clean flavors. The best food is often simple food done lovingly and well. Take those egg tarts (oh man, he thinks, where did I put those?): buttery, flaky pastry filled with the wobbly golden center of sugar and, well, egg -- but that soft, mild egg taste masked by butter and salt when fried -- finishing with a zing of ginger. Food doesn't have to be fancy to be great, and more dishes have been spoiled by overreaching than under-seasoning. 

But pancakes -- geez, pancakes are like a divine gift to cooks with imagination and a restless mind. Pancakes are _bread._ Pancakes are a blank canvas. Pancakes are a chance to let out what Allison dubbed his inner Southern grandma on meth. 

Adam wrinkles his nose. "What are pancakes?"

Katy's hand comes down so fast on his shoulder Kris staggers a little. "He means _how_ ," she babbles. " _How_ are the pancakes. They're fantastic, of course." She removes her hand, but the following smile -- directed at Adam -- is a little... aggressive. "Careful though, they're hell on your figure."

Adam's glare turns heated. 

Kris sniffs. "Do you guys smell smoke?"

Adam can't seem to figure out the menu. (This is fair. There have been a lot of revisions since Kris started the cafe, and while he tries to whiteout and annotate them all up to date, he's not the best at tracking down the individually laminated sheets. You can trace the cafe's growth in the passing of fruit/vegetable seasons and Kris's wandering fancies through their neglected evolution, like the rings on a tree trunk. Regulars know to read the blackboard which is technically supposed to display the daily specials, but is most days crowded with Katy's meticulous hand writing of what Kris can make with what's currently in the kitchen.) Kris figures, why not, whips up a plate of what they were testing out last week: overripe bananas mashed into the batter, the grilled cakes layered with a hazelnut cream he pinched from a recipe for langosi. He and Katy bickered on whether it was overkill, but he still prefers to put one of his homemade marshmallows on top -- "just one, a small one, it does not crowd out the hazelnut!" -- and let it melt from the heat, dripping slightly over the sides of the stack. There's a sprinkle of toasted coconut, but if pressed he'll admit it's mostly ambiance. 

Ten minutes later he's trying to sell Mrs. Cavanaugh on a glass of honeydew milk tea with when he notices the tug-of-war at Adam's table.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Adam hisses as he attempts to wrest the plate back from Katy. 

"You got what you wanted, _Adam_." Actually, it sounds like she calls him "dragon," but she's a ways a way. Kris never thought he'd have to talk to her about the proper way to speak to customers -- even ones you know personally -- but he makes a mental note. "So just leave, okay? Go back to where you came from."

"I'm not finished!"

"Oh, right. You expect me to believe you're hanging around for the pancakes?"

Adam succeeds in regaining the plate, snatching up a mouthful to toss directly into his mouth with a moan that makes Kris's shoulders hitch. 

Katy gasps, her hands falling back to her sides. "Oh my God," voice full of what sounds like dread. "You're hanging around for the pancakes."

"Is that a surprise?" Kris asks as he approaches. "You ate five short stacks when we were figuring out the marshmallow."

"You promised never to tell anyone," she mutters, and casts another horrified look over at Adam. Who is cleaning hazelnut cream off his fingers with long, feline licks, still half-hunched over the plate. 

"Good?" Kris asks. 

Adam pauses, those shocking eyes locking on Kris's face as he grins. "Can I have another?" he asks, and sure enough he wolfed down what was left, only speckles of toasted coconut left on the plate.

"Sure. More of the same, or do you want to try another flavor?"

Adam stares. "There are different kinds?"

Kris shrugs, scratching along his jaw. "Well, we've got the usual -- blueberry, chocolate chip, buttermilk -- but, yeah, you can see I like to come up with different combinations." He casts a look back to make sure Mrs. Cavanaugh isn't getting too antsy, sticks his pencil behind his ear and his pad in his back pocket. "I try them out on customers sometimes. If you like it, you get to name it for the menu. If you don't, it's free of charge." He's determined to make up for Katy's earlier rudeness, now. This guy doesn't seem too bad. Anyone who eats pancakes like that isn't _all_ bad. 

Adam cocks his head to one side. It shifts his hair, and Kris can see the studs that glitter all the way up the curl of his ear. "How many kinds are you trying out today? No, wait," and he straightens as his mouth moves into a real smile. It's a surprisingly sweet one. "Just bring me all of them." He hands out his plate. "And second serving of this, please."

"Sure thing," and turns up the wattage of his own smile. See, he tries to project to Katy, this is how you make a _customer_ into a _regular_. Watch and learn.

There might be a touch of swagger as he makes his way to the kitchen. Behind him he swears he hears Katy whimper. 

 

**2\. the truce**

" _Oh my God it's a_ \--" is as much Allison gets out, the first time she sees Adam in his booth, before Katy slaps a hand over her mouth mid-shriek.

"Allison," she says. "Honey, would you help me carry something out to the dumpster? Sweetie?"

"Mmmffmff _mmgh_ ," says Allison as she points at Adam, who's wrist-deep in pumpkin pancakes surrounded by a bird's nest of spun sugar. (Kris always makes too much. He blames the swish-flick motion required to thread the warm syrup from the fork into whatever shapes desired. No one can resist the thrill of the swish-flick.) He blinks at her.

"I can help you with the trash, Katy," Kris says.

"No no," she chirps. "We're fine, we -- we need some girl talk."

"Outside?" he asks as she frogmarches a still-flailing Allison towards the side entrance.

"It's a beautiful day to be a woman," is her parting shot before they're both out the door and standing in front of the parking lot.

" _Dragon_ ," he hears Allison gasp out as she wrenches free of Katy's hold. "There's a _dragon_ in your --" And then the door swings shut, muffling whatever prompts her to wave her arms at Katy like she's directing airplanes overhead.

"That's Allison," Kris says after a beat. "She just started college here. She's very. Enthusiastic."

Adam gives him a look. Adam's looks, Kris is finding, are not quite like other people's. For one thing, they're much more... credentialed? Whatever, when a guy wearing swathes of vermillion extending from eyelids to temples gives you an expression of "my tolerance for your lunacy is in direct disproportion to my hunger," it telegraphs better.

"You've got weird customers," is what Adam actually says.

Outside, Katy has both hands on Allison's shoulders and is punctuating whatever lecture she's delivering with frequent shakes. Today the scarlet around Adam's eyes is echoed in bright streaks against the sleek darkness of his hair, the stylized flames stitched along the leather corseting his ribs. The zodiac chain chimes and in comes Mr. O'Gillans, which means at least ten minutes of Kris's day will be spent explaining how, no, he really wouldn't prefer to be paid in gold coins and legal tender is fine.

"Well," Kris says. "It is Los Angeles."

~~++~~

 

Thing is, Adam just starts showing up. It's not gradual and it's not subtle, it's: hi, I'm moving in, dibs on the corner booth. Five minutes after Kris flips the sign to OPEN every morning, _jinglejingle_ goes the door and there's Adam, already seated, leaning back against the window like he's surveying his personal demesne.

It drives Katy up the wall. She spends the first two days in a state of stiff-necked tension. When she takes Adam's order she uses such over-pronounced formality Kris has a vision of the two of them in a duel -- thrown gauntlets and all -- and has to excuse himself to the kitchen as he laughs until there are tears in his eyes. (Which he will admit to her when they are _never_.) She calms down after the first week. Not much, enough to unkink her spine when she walks by that corner booth. Enough to start treating Adam to long, evaluating looks when he's distracted -- eyes closed, mouth turned up in bliss as he throws his head back in a full-body revel of the day's offering and is the man ever self-conscious? at all? the sounds he makes point to "no" -- and narrow her eyes when he meets her gaze.

Kris knows Katy. Kris knows Katy's looks. Kris feels like he should do something, maybe, like warn Adam. But TV's entered the summer season, Kris doesn't get anything beyond basic cable, and the God he believes in doesn't ask a man to sabotage his last remaining resource for entertainment.

Though it looks like Adam can hold his own, and not just against Katy.

Kris has been having… not trouble, exactly, but a bit of a headache concerning one of the semi-regulars. Gaylina is a lovely young woman with a delicious accent, and she'd be the perfect excuse to trot out his blintzes recipes if she weren't such a pain. Overtures via dinner or drinks, those he's skilled in refusing -- but invites to go swimming? He's honestly not sure what to say to that, and she has a distressing habit of latching onto his wrist with a cold, clammy hand that creeps him right out. (Also he thinks she spills her water deliberately, because whatever table she's at has puddles and drips condensation by the time she leaves. Plus she never tips.)

But the first time she tries it after their newest customer joins the fold, there's a… a weird sound. Like an engine revving, except much nearer and… warmer? Like the apparatus making that noise wasn't the product of steel and internal combustion at all.

It causes Gaylina to snatch her hand back and stammer out an apology -- the first Kris has had from her. Two minutes later she's out the door, throwing Adam nervous looks with every other step.

Kris stares at Adam -- seriously, he must unhinge his jaw to get that much in his mouth at once -- until the other man looks up.

 _What?_ Adam mouths at him, eyebrows raised. Kris lets it go.

It's not just Gaylina. It's the roughhousing between a couple of the really mean-looking kids (Kris heard Allison call them trolls, and you know you're a jerk when Allison hates you) that come in for lunch specials which stops mid-punch as Adam abruptly stands up in his booth. (He doesn't do anything. Just looks at them for a long minute, then sits back down.) It's the wide berth most of the customers give him for days, until the time Kris comes out of the kitchen to find Allison has left her spot at the breakfast bar and is chatting a mile a minute at Adam's table. It's the audible _sigh of relief_ that wends its way among his customers as Adam begins to chat back. It's how from that day on everyone is finding a few minutes to walk up to his corner; some put a piece of paper or wrapped package on the table before walking away, others are invited to sit for long stretches of time to hold whispered conversations with serious faces.

It's the fact that Adam has no job and no obligations, and nothing to do except look amazing and eat pancakes.

~~++~~

 

Adam never orders anything to drink. It's weird. Kris tries to bring him water, once, his own mouth gummy in sympathy at the sight of stacked plates, but Katy yanks him back before he can get from behind the display case.

"Don't even think about it," and she forcibly removes the glass from his hand to pour it down the sink.

"What? Why not?"

"Just don't, okay? _Don't._ " She actually shakes a finger in his face. "Don't bring him water. Ever. Swear to me." He does, because his dad told him dirty lies when he was in the third grade -- girls have never stopped being weird.

"Do you want to order coffee?" He asks Adam a few minutes later, instead.

Adam shakes his head, mouth full.

"It's on the house, man, with everything you order --"

Adam swallows. "Too bitter."

Kris frowns at today's offering: whole wheat layered with passion fruit jelly and fresh clotted cream, acacia honey drizzled generously around the plate's rim. "Really? I mean, I was going for something, you know, less sugary but still sweet, and I thought the butterfat would offset the --"

"No, I mean coffee," Adam interrupts. He smiles, and Kris always has to remind himself not to stagger back when that happens: the full force of Adam when he's happy is like stepping from darkness into noonday sunshine. "Doesn't matter how much sugar I put in it, it tastes..." He makes a face.

Kris nods and makes his way back to the kitchen, thoughtful.

"Try something for me," the next time Adam steps into the cafe.

Adam blinks. Today his eyes are edged in the colors of precious metals. "Okay," he says.

Kris gets his wok down from on top of the fridge, where Katy banned it after his fourth attempted low-fat stir-fry (at dogged repeat request from a lawyer type who wore Brooks Brothers and now ate lunch at a Sizzlers up the road) coincided with their fourth fire alarm that week. "I know how to cook with a wok!" he protested, and Katy nodded even as she shoved it back among various kitchen miscellany.

"It's not the wok, Kris," she informed him as she slapped the dust off her hands. "It's the low-fat that's your downfall. You're not equipped to cook with a calorie count, okay? This is your body's way of telling you it needs a break."

And even if that were true -- which it isn't, he reminds himself as tosses in a lump of butter to sizzle -- this concoction wouldn't give him any problems.

He measures out the beans as the butter melts, and when he adds them he takes minute to shake things up just right, watching the beans grow gloss. It's only a minute or so on the high heat before they begin to breathe out, blooms of earthy coffee scent released into the air.

"What are you doing?" Kris hears from the doorway and jumps. Adam's standing there with his head poking through the door, watching Kris's hands.

It's the first time he's seen Adam anywhere besides his corner booth, and Kris feels shy. "Customers aren't supposed to be in the kitchen."

Adam opens the door all the way. Looks down. Shifts his boots -- black, as always, but today Kris sees the faint impression of scales as the shadows move -- backwards an infinitesimal amount. Looks back up. "I'm not in the kitchen."

"You were totally that kid, weren't you."

Adam grins. "I'm still that kid."

"Obviously."

He leans his head against the door frame, looking at Kris with beseeching eyes. "Can I come in? Please? I want to see where the magic happens."

"No magic. If you're coming in, do it quick so the others don't think I'm playing favorites." Kris hates it when Adam gives him that look -- it makes the skin across his shoulders tingle and his palms sweat -- and he's stern to keep from being very silly.

"I think everyone knows I'm your favorite." Adam oozes smugness as he sidesteps the door, leveraging himself onto a chair next the island, currently piled high with takeout menus and advertisement fliers for newly-opened delis, bakeries, greasy spoons. Kris watches him rifle through them, all long fingers and delicate touches, and has to look away.

"Do you fry your coffee? Is this a Southern thing?"

Kris smiles but doesn't turn around. "You've been talking to Allison."

"I like her."

"She likes you." He gives the beans another shake before lowering the heat. He doesn't want to mess this up, and Adam is... distracting. "This is a Vietnamese drink. It brings out a really creamy flavor in the beans, almost like dark chocolate."

He swears he can feel the face Adam is making. "Still too bitter."

"Well, it doesn't stop there. Wait and see."

"Mmmm." They spend a moment in silence, wrapped in the smells of warm coffee and butter. "Why did you learn to cook?"

Kris steps away from the stove to fill the kettle with water. He's not above using the electric, but he's wary of the slight plastic-y taste when making drinks. It gives him time to think over Adam's question. It's not like people haven't asked him that before, but every time it throws him: like someone asking, why do you want to fall in love?

He settles for another shrug. "Some kids play with building blocks. My mom used to give me a baby-sized ball of dough to kneed when she made raisin bread. I was convinced that was where the fun was at." He starts a growing collection on the counter top as he wanders about the kitchen: small white coffee mug, individual cup drip (the kind made of aluminum with a loose, rattling lid), a long-necked glass wider at the mouth than the base due to a gradual flare along the body which he fills with ice. "It never really stopped. I like food."

"No, I like food." Adam watches as Kris turns the heat off the beans, shakes them again to cool. "Allison likes food. It's why we eat yours." He seems fascinated by the way Kris stretches to reach one of the smaller coffee grinders on a shelf. "I'm pretty sure what you have is an obsession."

"Be nice."

"I am! I'm also, you know, truthful."

"Yeah." He buzzes the coffee to give himself a moment to soothe his own ruffled feathers. "I've heard lecture on how I shouldn't try to eat my feelings."

"What about trying to make other people eat your feelings?"

…whatever. "Is this about the zoolbiya? I'm telling you, man, it was nothing personal. You snooze, you lose around here."

Adam straightens as if goosed. "I was _distracted_. You could have _saved me some_."

Kris bites down on his cheek to keep his mouth from twitching into a grin. He brought in several white paper bags of the fried golden tangles, sticky with rosewater syrup, and expected Adam to pounce the moment he walked in the door. But the other man was deep in conversation with several of those new friends and didn't give Kris a glance. Which might be why by the time Adam extricated himself, all that was left were syrup-shiny fingers and Allison's unconvincing avowal that they really hadn't been that good, anyway.

"I guess it takes an obsession to scout the Persian bakeries near your gym," he says, "but the rewards can be worth it." (Barham's Bakery is on Tuesdays. Because he doesn't care what Katy says, there is a System, and without the System there is chaos and despair.)

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"It was a compliment."

Kris sifts the coffee grounds into the drip. "Kinda sounded like you were calling me a big loser."

"No, that's not --" Adam does this thing with his body that evokes a cat resettling its fur. "I know people who draw focus from anger or ambition. Sadness works, too -- losing something can give you a purpose." His voice wavers a moment, regains its surety. "But you're the first I've met who goes there out of love. I think it's admirable."

Kris considers this. Relents. "Do you cook?"

"Nah." He splays out on the island, upper body prone. He somehow manages not to knock any of Kris's fliers to the floor. "I hunt a lot," he offers.

Kris can't picture Adam with a 12-guage and an eye-searing hunting vest, but: "Okay." He reaches back into the fridge to draw out a jam jar, unscrews the top and tips the creamy, butter-colored contents into the empty coffee cup.

"What's that?"

"Condensed milk. You've probably seen it in cans with -- no?" As Adam shakes his head. "I make my own, anyway. It's just butter, sugar, dried milk and water. Plus a little vanilla for kick." He tapers off the gooey liquid, twisting his wrist in a showy flourish. "Easy as pie."

"What's pie?"

Kris pauses in the middle of tightening the jar lid. "You don't -- oh, man, are we going to have fun once you get tired of pancakes."

"Hey."

He looks over as he shuts the door to the fridge. Adam has managed to get up off the island and out of his chair without any warning scrapes of rickety chair legs, which, okay, maybe Kris has underestimated his ability in sneaking up on poor, unsuspecting animals. He's not intruding on Kris's personal space so much as leaning just inside it, with a tension in his body that reads like a willingness to close the gap between them in a heartbeat.

"I'm not going to get tired of pancakes."

The kettle chooses that moment to start its thready whistle, and Kris uses the excuse to break eye contact. Adam moves back enough to let him fill the drip, but Kris can feel the heat radiating from his body as he arranges everything on a tray. He's not looking -- he's very carefully not looking -- but Kris knows those blue eyes have yet to blink or shift focus.

So he picks up the tray and moves out of the kitchen like he expects to be followed (which, maybe a touch slower than Kris would like, he is) and convinces himself he's not running away from anything. He's got everything set up by the time Adam slinks back into his booth, and ignores both the sulk threatening to settle on the other man's face and the rapt attention of the customers who watched them walk out together.

"How long do I wait?" Adam asks, poking at the press like it's a bug.

Kris smacks at his hands. "Let me take care of it. I'll be back in a second. "

He takes the time to fill a couple drink tickets Katy leaves by the espresso machine with a pointed look. He taps his fingers and jitters his leg as he works. He manages three cappuccinos and one espresso doppio, and then veers towards Adam's table as if drawn by a magnet.

He uses a rag to pick up the drip (now scorching hot), shaking free the last drops before wrapping it up and placing it on the empty tray. He upends the contents of the mug into the tall glass. He never gets tired of watching the thickly-brewed coffee pour dark as pitch, then lighten beautifully to the creamy milk beneath. He scrapes whatever clings to the bottom with a long-handed spoon, then uses that to stir everything together as the ice melts it to the color of fresh café-au-lait.

"Just try it," he says as he steps away, taking a deep breath. "It's okay if you don't like it."

He sees Adam take a tentative sip as he walks away. There's a second of stillness -- and then he _laughs_. It sounds like amazement.

Kris pretends he's organizing receipts at the register so he can watch Adam enjoy his iced coffee. Mrs. Cavanaugh has to call his name twice before he notices she's standing there waiting to be rung up.

She cackles: "Oooooh, you have got it _bad_ for that boy."

And, well, Kris was raised to revere his elders, so he has to hope the way he grudgingly counts out her change communicates the overall sentiment that she shove it.

~~++~~

 

One day Kris breaks. 

He looks at Adam, dressed in leather and some ridiculous thing over his shoulders with actual spikes, what the heck. He looks outside, at the way the pavement shimmers in the heat. He looks at the long-necked glasses already used that morning and lined up for washing, the one still half-full held between Adam's curled fingers. 

He thinks, with unexpected vehemence: screw it. 

He plunks down the mug with less grace than he'd wish, but he doesn't think anyone can see the odd quiver in his hands. "Drink some water or you're going to pass out from dehydration when you go outside."

Adam reaches out to touch the side of the mug, tentative. His hands are sheathed in buttery leather, save his fingers. He's so ridiculous sometimes it makes Kris's stomach twist. "It's hot."

"Hot water hydrates you better."

Adam peers. "What's in it?"

"It's a dried round of blood orange," Kris almost snarls. "Because your sweet tooth is _unbelievable_." He stomps away before he can get a reaction to that.

~~++~~

 

He isn't drinking it.

Oh, Kris thinks as he wipes down the breakfast bar with unnecessary vigor, Adam's faking it pretty good. Picking up the mug every so often -- not too often -- but never letting it touch his lips as he talks with whatever customer has placed themselves opposite in the last few minutes. Moving it around a lot. Those kinds of tricks. 

But Kris spent hours at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter tables where he was expected to eat a bit of each dish every far-flung relative was considerate enough to bring over, and too many bites of jello fluff and Hawaiian spam casserole were flushed away for him to be fooled. 

So. Adam won't drink his water. Okay. No big deal. It's just water. Maybe he hates tap. Maybe he's a water snob. It's not a thing.

When Kris wasn't looking Adam managed to pluck out the orange, holding it between the kind of long, etched guards that sit right on top of your fingernail. Kris has never seen them on a real person in real life, only kung fu movies, but they look fitting on Adam's left thumb and forefinger. He holds up the round of fruit with the delicacy of long practice, pinwheel segments the red of rubies. He places it on the edge of his plate to sit, safe, while he dances the water around the table and Kris nurtures the beginnings of a headache. 

Another three hours until close.

Sometimes being your own boss sucks.

~~++~~

 

"He brought you water?" Kris hears Katy whisper. She sounds deeply, truly shocked, and it makes him pause in opening the side door from where he's just taken out the trash. He can't see either of them from this angle, as the backing of the booth rises high over Adam's head. But he hears everything.

"I'm really sorry," she says a moment later. "I would have stopped him if... I mean, not that giving you... if he _knew_ \--"

"He doesn't," Adam interrupts. His voice is sub-zero, and for the first time Kris is able to wrap his head around the fear Adam inspires in some people. "He doesn't know, and I didn't drink it."

The unspoken 'now drop it' hangs heavy in the air. Kris knows even before he hears Katy draw breath to speak that she won't -- can't -- leave it be.

"Your being here," she starts -- and no, no, this feels wrong, the air smells like ozone but Kris can't seem to move, "I appreciate what you're doing. What you've _done_ : for me, for the people here. But they know what you are. They know what they're getting into." He wants to gag; it tastes like sparks in the back of his throat. "Kris doesn't."

"I'm not the only one who's hiding things."

"That's different. I'm not hurting anyone. I would _never_ \--"

"You think I would." Kris can tell from the projection of his voice that Adam has stood up. "You think I'm the big bad animal, don't you, come to burn the place down, can't be trusted, can't control himself --"

"Can you?" she breaks in. "You don't think I see how you look at him? He doesn't _get it_ , and you're going to break his heart. This is exactly how we ended up here in the first place: you don't know how to work within the rules. You had to push things, you can't just stay where you belong --"

Kris hears the scrape of porcelain against tabletop and is moving before he consciously processes what that means, but it's too late: he turns the corner just as the now-cool water splashes in Katy's face, soaking her hair to a darker blonde, running in rivulets down her throat. 

"Adam." 

The two of them don't even flinch, which is a bad sign. They do look, though: Katy breathing a little fast from shock, Adam towering over her with the empty mug still in his hand. 

"Apologize."

Adam draws in a long, deep breath. "No."

Then he just -- leaves. Places money on the table and walks out, so quick and efficient Katy is babbling to Kris about how it's nothing, it's no big deal, don't worry about it before he realizes what's happened.

He goes back to the kitchen and stares into the refrigerator for a good ten minutes. 

There's a farmer's market open until nine tonight. If he swings by on the way home he can make what he needs at his apartment, let it sit overnight. It'd be ready by breakfast tomorrow.

Two hours later he has his prize: a bag of firm red chilies, plump forms pressing against the plastic like they're eager to be unleashed. Along with his wrath. 

~~++~~

 

"Chili-chocolate pancakes," Kris announces as he sets the plate down with a flourish. "With chocolate chips, candied chilies, and chili-chocolate syrup."

Adam laughs. 

Kris stares him down. 

"Oh god, you're serious." Adam swallows. "Wait, candied chilies? How -- how do you even do that?"

"Like with orange peel. Several hours of simmering in water and some sugar, strip out the seeds and dice them for the batter. It yields a nice syrup, too, and I mixed some of it with Dutch cocoa for the topping."

Adam looks down at his plate as if it has betrayed him on a fundamental level, like a teddy bear with rabies. "Aren't chilies vegetables?"

"Legally. In the US. Botanically, they're a fruit." He smiles like a card shark. "The more you know, right?"

"Kris..."

"Have you met my friend Katy?"

Adam's face darkens. "Listen --"

"Katy works here. That means she turns up at 6:30 to help me prep and lay out the food, and she stays until seven making sure everything is cleaned up and packed for the next morning. Sometimes she gets tired and makes mistakes, or says something she doesn't mean. But she works hard." He feels his hands curl into fists at his sides. "She works hard so that people like you can come in, sit down, and be comfortable. Have food when they're hungry and a place to hang out away from home." The cafe around them has gone dead quiet. "Say you're sorry, Adam." 

"Kris?" Because, of course, Katy chooses that moment to sidle up to the corner booth. "Is anything the matter?"

"Nah. Adam just wants to tell you something."

She tenses. "Oh?"

Adam shifts his gaze to her. Kris can see the man struggle, the twist of his mouth wanting to lash out. 

But he slumps back. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "For yesterday. I behaved badly."

"Oh." She blinks. Blinks again. "I. Um. I probably did, too?" She makes an abortive move toward the kitchen. "So, me too, I... let's just forget about the whole thing, okay?" Then, Kris swears, she _runs away_ to the other side of the cafe. She whips out her pad for the Price twins like there will be a test later. Kris sighs, feeling the weight of that weirdness fall from his shoulders: she's looking vaguely pink, which means she's more embarrassed than angry, now.

"So, are you going to tell me what yesterday was about?" he asks, propping one hip against Adam's table. "For real?"

Adam glances up at him, mouth open -- closes it. His eyes dart away, he shifts slightly. He's _uncomfortable_ , Kris realizes, for the first time since appearing on the cafe's doorstep... and he's not going to tell Kris a darn thing.

Kris is suddenly, incandescently angry. This is ridiculous. It's more than ridiculous -- it's mortifying, shame so bitter he can taste it. He's just, he's so _gone_. It's not that he isn't happy to come to work regardless, but there's been an extra frisson of energy the last few weeks: fingertips buzzing the moment he unlocks the door, warmth curled in the pit of his stomach all day. He spends half his time dropping by Adam's table for a word, a joke, even just a wordless look of "you okay?" if someone's been bending the guy's ear for the better part of an hour with yet to let up. Just to get that slow, sure smile that means "I'm fine." Kris isn't subtle, and he isn't fooling anyone. He's marshmallow pudding. 

Adam is... a blank slate. No idea where he's from. No idea what he does. Throws water in Katy's face because of some beef Kris _still knows nothing about_. Flirts and smiles and walks out the door every day to God knows where. Or why. Kris doesn't even know his last name. 

He's been an idiot, and the realization washes over him like ice water, almost leaving him with shivers. He only has himself to blame.

He sighs, thinking it's a bad sign to feel this tired so early in the day. "I'll take those," reaching for Adam's plate.

Adam's forehead wrinkles, and he's got his own grip secure on the plate before Kris can blink. "Wait, so, what else is on the menu? Please nothing that will actually bite back," with a weak laugh.

Kris makes another grab for the plate. Adam pulls it out of his reach. "Listen, man, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not up for it today. It was a long night, I don't really have anything else in mind." He shrugs. "There's the whole rest of the menu, you know. We've got waffles, and... " His voice falters as he finishes, looking up to find Adam wide-eyed.

"Dude," Kris manages after a second. "They're pancakes."

If anything that causes Adam even more distress. He looks frantically around the table before snatching up a fork -- poised halfway between setting-to and defending his prize. "These are fine!" a little high-pitched. "I can eat these."

Kris's eyebrow climbs for his hairline. "You sure?" 

"With some iced coffee?" He flinches at Kris's expression. "Okay, maybe not. I'm fine." Adam settles, ready to dig in. "Is that mango on top?" he asks.

"Pan-fried," Kris says. "It's easy -- little butter, toss with lime juice and Cointreau after, you're done."

Adam brightens. 

"And the chili syrup, of course," Kris adds.

Adam falters.

"I'd throw some fresh mint on top, but what do you know, we're all out." 

If you looked up "hangdog" in the dictionary right now, as Kris's dad likes to say, you'd find Adam's expression. "I really would like some iced coffee, please," he says, soft. 

"I used up the last of the condensed milk."

"Could you make more?"

"You know," Kris says, thoughtful, "I probably could."

He turns and walks away.

~~++~~

 

Allison overhears the whole thing, of course -- from the way people launch into their food and conversations the minute he walks away from Adam, Kris thinks the entire cafe heard them. As he straightens up the display case he hears her sigh where she's seated at the bar. 

"You really won't make another kind?" she asks. "I was in the mood for pancakes."

He goes back into the kitchen. The beautiful thing about pancakes -- well, one of many, considering their usefulness as instruments of _great justice_ \-- is how easy it is to recreate a recipe once you've worked it out to satisfaction. He adds a portion of leftover mango to the plate and has it in front of Allison within minutes, along with a small pot of the usual hot fudge they reserve for pancakes. 

She looks dubious. "This isn't going to blow my head off, is it?"

"Taste it and see. Your topping is straight chocolate, though, and the syrup is where most of the heat is since the seeds are in there when the chilies simmer."

She casts a quick look backward at Adam -- who, Kris notes with deep satisfaction, has taken his first bite. "That's the only difference?" she asks at the look on Adam's face. "The syrup?"

He shrugs. "And I might have cheated a little. Added a pinch of chili powder to his batch."

"A pinch."

"Or two."

"Two?"

"Maybe five."

She blinks at him. Takes another look at Adam, who is wide-eyed and, yep, panting a little. "Where did you learn such evil?"

"At my mama's knee. Now, eat."

~~++~~

 

Twenty minutes later he's wondering if it's time to cut the guy a break. Kris thinks it over as he rings up a couple of teenagers, all of them wearing their collars turned up to brush their ears and standing with their hands jammed deep in their pockets. (When he hands over the receipt he catches a glimpse of iridescent webbing between bony fingers, and he doesn't care if saying it makes Allison rant about the freedom of creative expression: the body mods today are out of control.) After all, he did apologize, and he did eat the pancakes, and Kris is of the mind that _holy shit the floor is on fire._

He doesn't even close the register, he's out and grabbing one of their fire extinguishers from where it hangs next to the kitchen door. He can hear the shocked screams and shouts building as he sprints, pulling out the pin. He clamps down the handle, memory and training taking over from the drills he used to run (nothing like a grease fire to put safety skills in perspective): aims at the base of the fire and carefully sweeps the nozzle back and forth as the extinguisher discharges its contents. 

The frightened cries turn to coughs as the CO2 clouds the air, slowly lightening as it banks the flames. He hears the zodiac chain as some quick-thinking regular opens the door, and the gas begins to dissipate into the fresh air. When it blows away completely, it reveals Adam curled up in the corner both and shifted so far back his back is pressed against the window.

Should tell him to get his boots off the seat, Kris thinks. The _floor_? Really? A random patch of floor where oh thank God no one was actually standing and why the hell does Adam look guilty?

"Whoops," Adam whispers.

"What the --" Breathe, breathing is important. BOOMBOOMBOOM goes the adrenaline-spiked heart in his chest. "What the hell was that? What happened? Are you okay? Did you get burned?" 

"I'm so sorry," Adam says. "I'm okay, I really am, I -- spicy things make my nose itch! You wouldn't give me any iced coffee!" The tips of his ears are bright red. "I'm sorry."

Kris grasps at a chair -- see, perfectly nice chair and table, you know, the stuff that is usually suspect when there's spontaneous combustion to be had -- before his knees give out, careful to set the emptied extinguisher down as well. "What? I don't get it. Did you -- you didn't, like, throw a match on the floor or anything, did you?"

"No," still miserable.

"Then what are you sorry for? Are you okay?"

"He's fine! You're fine, right?" And there's Allison, tugging on Adam's arm and forcing him to his feet. "Now he has to walk me to class! The pancakes were great, Kris, but I feel, uh, a little warm? Don't want to keel over in this heat, so: walking buddies! You can be my buddy, right, Adam?" 

"I'm really sorry!" Adam throws over his shoulder as Allison muscles him out the door, leaving Kris alone to ponder the foamy mess that used to be his floor.

~~++~~

 

"This floor isn't very flammable," he says, later.

Katy doesn't look at him. She gives off the idea she's somewhere far, far away from wherever Kris is -- impressive, considering they're both on their knees and mere feet apart. As well as alone in the cafe, since they had to apologize and send everyone home.

"This part wasn't even _close_ to anything flammable."

Katy sighs. "Kris, I love you as much as it is appropriate to love your boss. But do us both a favor: don't talk to me for a couple hours."

Jeez, he thinks as they go back to scrubbing at smoke-blackened linoleum. Touchy. 

 

**3\. the wild hunt**

It's July and the sunlight lasts for hours these days, so he's surprised when the inside of the cafe is suddenly dim -- almost too dark to see his own hands gathering up dishes abandoned on the tables at closing. He blinks.

"Is there a storm outside?" he asks Allison. Allison always insists on staying around to help on Katy's day off, but Kris inevitably muscles her into a corner with the admonition that students should be, well, studying.

She looks up from her textbook, leans closer to the window -- and stills.

"What is -- hey," putting down everything in his hands and combating vicious deja vu as he watches her eyes get wider and wider. "Hey, Allison? What's wrong?"

For an answer she stands, coming out of the booth, and grabs his hands to pull him over to the doorway. She switches her hands to his shoulders, pushing him against the door so that the pulled blinds rattle above his head.

"Seriously, what are you --"

"I need you to trust me for two minutes. You're the owner, and I'd do it but things like that matter, and it might make a difference if you're the one in the way," and he starts, because he's never heard that tone in her voice before. And again, this is all feeling really familiar.

"Allison --"

She looks him square in the face. "Don't let them in."

He's opening his mouth to ask _Who?_ when it hits -- a strange sensation, like a reverse sonic boom, the absence of sound spreading in ripples that hit him low down in the spine and he buckles a little before grabbing onto the doorframe with both hands. And then --

\-- a _wave_ of sounds like hoof beats and metal clanging and screaming war cries --

\-- things beating dully against the windows, and he can see shapes like hands and sometimes wings --

\-- pressure against the doorway, a wind at his back, hot breath and moist air of a monster --

_no_

\-- blowing Allison's hair back as she stumbles --

_you can't come in_

\-- and it dies.

The zodiac resettles, the light gently begins to filter back through the windows. Everything as it was before.

Allison sinks to the floor. "Oh my God," he hears her whisper. "I can't believe that worked. I mean, okay, it was just a sweep and they weren't out in full force, but it _worked_."

"What the --" He's still shaking, the window-glass now cold against his back. "What _was_ that?"

Allison raises her head to say something and then -- doesn't. Tilts her head to one side. "What do you think it was?" she asks, slow.

He lets himself slide down to sit in front of her. "I don't -- I mean." He stares at the floor for a minute. "Hailstorm?" he offers. "I guess L.A. gets weird weather, being next to the ocean and all..."

She groans, covers her face with her hands. "Katy's gonna kill me," she says, muffled.

"What? Why?"

"Because!" she wails. "I promised not to say anything, but if they found the cafe -- I know you have super-human levels of rationalization, but there's the everyday stuff and then there's the Wild Hunt, and I don't think I can explain away a bunch 'em carrying Katy out while she's kicking and screaming and you can't try and fight them, Kris, you have to swear, they will seriously mess you up --"

"Woah, woah." He puts both hands up, palms out. "You have to -- okay, you have to make sense, first, and then you have to tell me exactly how Katy figures into this. Is she in trouble?"

Allison stares at him, and he's concerned to note she's looking more than a bit wild-eyed. "It's like a band-aid, right? Hurts less if it's all at once." He watches as she steels herself. "Kris."

"Yeah?"

"Maybe you've noticed that sometimes the people who come here can be a little strange." She swallows. "Oh man, please tell me you've noticed."

He shrugs. "Customers are customers, Allison. They've all got their tics."

"Yeah, but we're not just... customers."

"Okay," he says, willing to play along. "So what are you?"

She hesitates. "Other stuff?"

"Like?"

"Like..." She lets the word trail off. Turns her eyes heavenward. Takes in a deep breath. Then:

"You know all that made-up stuff like fairies and elves and ghilen and kitsune so what if it wasn't made up and all those things actually existed only they didn't exist on earth with us so much as they have their own separate space-time dimensions which they sometimes drag humans into and create a whole fuckload of trouble -- yeah now is not the time for a lecture on my language -- and anyway whenever they come into our world instead and they use specific portals in specific places and there's one right across the street and a lot of them end up eating at your cafe."

He smiles. Shakes his head. Smiles even wider. "Wow. Okay. Wow. Why my cafe?"

"I don't know, the espresso's really good. Kris, are you hearing me?"

"Sure." He nods. "All my customers are fairy tale people."

"Not all. I think you'd notice all. I hope," she finishes on a mutter.

"So, a bunch of my customers are something out of Lord of the Rings. And that freak wind tunnel --"

"The Wild Hunt."

"Yeah. It's after the one waitress I've been able to keep on the job. Why?"

"Kris," and she takes his hands in her own, squeezing them as she looks into his eyes with an expression of deep sympathy, "Katy's an elf."

He can't help it: he laughs. He knows it's almost mean, but he just -- he can't.

Then it clicks.

He's up and running to the office as Allison calls his name, remembering that first interview with Katy, remembering how long she took to fill out a simple info sheet with a wince every time she put pen to paper, but he was so taken with her he never even gave it more than a cursory once-over...

He's stumbling around the office half-blind in the dark -- when did he last clean in here? when was he last _in_ here -- and then he finds it thoughtfully pinned to the dart board under a carbon of last month's rent check. He sits down to read it (well, sits, yelps when he discovers this is where he's been hiding the garlic press, sits back down and then reads it) and -- there is it. In black and white for all to see.

_PLACE OF BIRTH: Álfheimr_

_PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE: Elven handmaiden_

~~++~~

 

"She's not actually a handmaiden, I don't know why she put that," Allison explains as they rattle along. "She's a princess." 

They're in Allison's car, at her insistence, and Kris is still a little too unsteady to put up a fight. It's a Toyota Corolla older than either of them, but he really shouldn't judge -- Kris isn't sure his first car had working brakes. (Though it did allow him to master the art of the rolling stop.) They hit a pothole and Kris levitates a good five inches out of the passenger seat, refusing to pitch into the footwell by his grip on the door handle. " _What?_ "

"Well, the elven political hierarchy has evolved so completely over the past regime change she's more like a really, really elite senator. But they retained the title for simplicity's sake."

"How do you even... are you..?"

She laughs. "Please, I'm not an elf. I am way too much fun." She leans into the next curve, blowing past a red light. "I'm a changeling," like it explains everything.

It does not. "So..."

"There used to a lot more intermingling, yeah? Every now and again the genetic lottery throws out a winning number like me."

"Which means you're... bi-dimensional?"

"No, I belong here. I'm human, just with a little extra."

"What, can you magic away my small business tax?"

"Maybe? Eventually? Right now I just get to be in on the know. They sent me a scholarship to this super-elite inter-dimensional program when I was looking at colleges, and that's how I found all this out. Total Hogwarts."

He has to smile at her enthusiasm, even if every passing minute feels like quicksand beneath his feet. "I thought you were studying Comparative Literature?"

"I am! Just, really widely comparative. With a concentration in dragon poetry. Oh my God, when I saw Adam in your cafe I fucking flipped! Do you know how long it's been since anyone's seen a dragon? My advisor turns green every time we meet, she's so jealous it's killing her. But I told her Adam wouldn't appreciate it if she just came in to gawk, so she's --" 

"Wait." He feels like he should have seen this coming. Somehow he didn't. "Adam. Is..."

"He's a dragon." She rolls her eyes. "We kept calling him that."

"So when you called Adam a dragon, you meant he was an _actual dragon_."

"Uh, yeah. Why, what were you thinking?"

Well, it seems silly now, but: "Some kind of new gay slang?"

She doesn't even dignify that with a response.

"He doesn't look like a dragon!" It feels important to defend.

"Inter-dimensional beings, Kristopher. You've got to open your mind." She shrugs. "Something about 5th dimensional space. He tried to explain it to me once, gave me a headache." 

"So. A dragon. With the fire-breathing and the -- wait. Wait a _minute_. Is that what happened to my floor?" 

She winces. "He's still really sorry about that." 

Another swerve, and Kris is glad he skipped dinner. "Hey, we're on -- this isn't the way to Katy's place."

"Yeah." Her eyes flick to the mirrors. "We're not going to Katy's."

"You said she was in trouble!"

"She's been in this kind of trouble for a while, she'll be okay for another night. And where we're going will help, I promise." She shoots him a nervous look. "I really do promise. You know I would never put Katy in danger. Right?"

"Yeah." He forces himself to breathe normally. "Yeah, of course. But shouldn't we give her a call?"

"As soon as we get where we're going. Kris, I swear."

"Okay. And where is that?"

But he thinks he already knows.

~~++~~

 

"Please don't tell me you know these people," he says to Allison.

"It was for a school project. They're one of the last remaining dragon cults in the states."

Kris eyes their surroundings. Allison drove up to a warehouse somewhere on the grungier side of Hollywood, and the scene inside it -- once they were waved past the line and the velvet rope, a surreal experience Kris thinks it was too bad he was in no state to appreciate since it will never happen again -- is. Is pretty intense. Low, strobing light flickers across blissed-out faces as people throw their hands up at the music's insistent beat. It should be the same as any club scene, except. Except instead of mixing cologne and perfume, the room is redolent with incense, heavy smoke coiling in the air. There are muted murals on the walls he can't quite make out besides flashes of teeth and enormous roiling bodies, and -- yep. Yes, there is definitely the zygote of an oddly religious-looking orgy starting over in that corner. 

"I don't think you're old enough to be here," he says.

Allison just rolls her eyes. "Prude. These are nice people."

He is not. And he's sure they are -- judging from the wide smiles and the flirtatious looks coming from that particular corner, it's definitely a _nice_ orgy, you know, not one where they give a crap about anything before the nakedness, like what you were wearing or who you came with. But still. An orgy. (He has nothing against them in theory, it's just they're so disorganized. Kris listens to jazz piano, and he believes in establishing a theme before you begin to riff.)

This whole thing is just not... him. He's worked hard to make a life for himself, and nothing here resembles any part of that life, anything he's chosen to bring into his home or work or makeshift family. Not because any of it would be upsetting, just -- it's all so alien. He has no connection with the people here or any understanding of why they do what they're doing. He looks around, and none of it makes any sense.

He sees Adam round the corner and thinks: Except you.

Allison shrieks and muscles through the crowd, flinging herself at Adam. Kris watches as he catches her with a laugh and swings them around, finally putting her down with a bemused look. As soon as Allison detaches she begins to talk a mile a minute -- Kris can see her lips move even as the trance-y music keeps any sound from traveling more than a few feet. He watches as Adam, listening, stills. His head almost turns toward Kris before he jerks it back to Allison, his face blank. There's a stiffness in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw, that Kris has never seen before. 

Kris decides to quit being a moron and move towards them, pushing by dancers and disengaging friendly hands with a "Sorry, no thanks, sorry." By the time he reaches them at least two more buttons are undone on his shirt than when he was at the other end of the room. 

Adam is half turned away when he arrives, speaking quietly to someone who nods and leaves quickly. He motions to them without looking, and Kris and Allison follow him back into a hallway, past closed doors and up a staircase. 

The door at the top opens into a loft, wide windows letting in light from the streets below. Adam walks in at a _strut_ \-- boots hard-stepping, hips lazy, making it clear this is his territory. 

"You'll get better signal on the balcony," he says to Allison, barely looking back.

She squeezes Kris's arm and smiles. "See? I'm calling Katy right now, no worries."

"No worries," he echoes as she hurries over and out of the room, digging out her cell phone as she goes. 

He looks around. 'Opulent' is really the only word that works. He can't see any amenities like a TV or fridge, but the room is overflowing with pillows, cushions, and squashed-looking armchairs. There might even by a chaise hidden underneath one of the curtains, he's not sure. And it all looks so touchable: walls decorated with tapestries and silk, plush rugs underfoot, piles of cushions looking like something designed to fall into. Soft blankets and throws litter any flat surface like the mercury doesn't clear 85 with every sunrise. There's an overall feeling of indulgence, of being enclosed. 

It's a nest, Kris realizes with slight unease. 

"You can sit anywhere," Adam calls back. 

Kris doubts that. A lot of the surfaces don't look very... supportive? There's a definite fear of sinking, seems to be the problem. He takes another look at Adam's rigid back, sighs, and goes for what seems the sturdiest spot in the room. It gives a _lot_ , but there's no danger of being swallowed whole.

Yet.

"Allison filled you in."

"Yeah." He settles with greater certainty. "Princesses, changelings, and dragons, oh my."

"So. You know everything." Adam takes a sharp breath, but then calms himself. "What do you think?"

Kris studies him from his place on the cushions: sharp outline of profile cut in shadow against the glare of city lights. Even at night L.A. is ablaze, and Adam's using it to shade his expression in darkness.

Kris doesn't let him. He tilts his head until it's obvious he's waiting for Adam to meet his eyes, and when the dragon does Kris smiles: open, easy. Like this suddenly feels. 

"I think you owe me fifty bucks for my floor, man." 

And Adam smiles back. 

~~++~~

 

"So. A dragon."

"Yeah."

"A real one."

"Yup."

"Wings and all?"

"If you ask nicely."

Kris pauses, then pretends he didn't. "A vegetarian dragon?"

Adam winces from where he's got his head in Kris's lap. He repossessed the space -- and Kris -- after it became clear the latter wasn't about to bolt in the face of revelation. He's sprawled with an arm thrown over his head, shirt rucked up over one pale hip like a cat offering his belly for rubs.

"And that Wild Hunt thing?"

Adam shrugs. "I can handle them."

"Well, you're a dragon." Kris props himself up on an elbow, threads one hand through Adam's hair. It's slightly tacky, so probably there's something in it to make it stand up an inch (duh, Kris), but Adam doesn't seem miffed at the prospect of messed-up hair. He moves into the touch instead, and Kris smiles against his will. "I'm thinking you can handle a lot."

"Yeah, I'm pretty bitchin'," Adam says, happy. 

Kris looks around, takes in what Adam insisted earlier is not -- "seriously, stop calling it that" -- a man cave. He feels like the filling of a jelly donut, squashed between silky-soft pillows and velvety throws. "Is that why we came here? I thought we'd need Katy ASAP, but if we've got you in our corner..." Adam's smile is fading, and something that looks like guilt creeps in at the edges. "What?"

"So, technically, I might be in _their_ corner. Only technically!" he yelps as Kris attempts to throw him off. He catches Kris around the waist, burying his head into Kris's midsection. "I swear I would never hurt you or yours. It's complicated," he says, voice muffled.

Kris stops struggling. "What the hell," he grits out, every muscle tensed.

Adam sighs. Kris can feel hot breath through his shirt, and his stomach twitches. "It's a long story."

"I'm sitting here," Kris points out. 

Adam squirms, and Kris thwaps him across the shoulder. "Katy should tell it," the dragon whines. "He's after _her_ , anyway."

"Who's after her?"

"Simon the Magus. He commands the Wild Hunt." Adam uncoils a bit, but throws a hand across his eyes -- a neat trick to keep from meeting Kris's scrutiny. "A magician."

"Friend of yours?"

That mobile mouth shifts into a sneer. "Please. Two bites, all I need is the chance."

"But you're --"

"I told you, it's complicated." He lets the hand slip, and his eyes are sad. "I promise. Kris. Allison brought you here because she wants me to drive off the advance scouts -- and I will, as soon as we know where Katy's hiding. Wouldn't want to lead them straight to her." 

Kris lets out all the tension he'd been holding with a breath. His head falls back. "Why is it," he asks the ceiling, draped in spangled fabric, "that every time someone tells me something, I feel like I know even less?"

He looks down at a touch to his chest. "Sorry," Adam whispers, and Kris knows it's an apology intended to cover a lot of ground. 

"S'okay," he finds himself saying. "My life could use the excitement. I guess." 

He's still holding Adam's gaze when Allison comes in from the balcony. "Don't we look cozy," she says, grinning, as she perches on the arm of an overstuffed loveseat. 

"He's too skinny," Adam announces. 

"So don't get comfortable or anything," Kris says.

Adam casts a look under his eyelashes that's pure flirt. "You'll know when I start to get comfortable."

"Hi, corruptible youth three feet away," Allison says, and Kris tries to disappear into the couch cushions. Adam struggles up onto his elbows, throws a pillow in her direction. 

"Katy's staying with a friend in the Hills," she says as she catches it. "Says she's fine, but I think she's freaked out that Kris knows."

"She should complain to Simon," Adam says. He sits up all the way off of Kris, hunching a little. "Not my fault he got a civilian involved." 

"She also said you'd better drag your scaly butt out of bed for a morning war council."

Kris slides to the floor in shock. "A what?"

"You guys need a battle plan. 7 AM, your place." She makes a face. "I'm not allowed, I have a lecture at eight."

"Oh?" Adam perks up a little. "Where are you in the canon?"

"Historical epics." At Kris's bewildered face she adds: "My concentration's in dragon poetry, remember?" She shakes her head. "I wish we could just do court ballads for the rest of the semester."

"It won't be all bad," Adam says as he wraps his arms around his knees. "You'll like the Third Dynasty stuff."

"I saw that! With the blended chorus-style?"

Adam nods and launches into a series of names, liquid syllables which inspire eager responses from Allison. The two of them are off. Kris stretches out on the floor with a sigh. His hand knocks against a leaning tower of cushions to tumble down on his head. He picks up the one that landed square on his face -- deep burgundy, with a button dimpling the center. He grins. 

He's squared the foundation and erected three support pillars when Adam catches sight of Kris's antics. "What are you doing?"

"Building a pillow fort." He makes serious work out of balancing a cushion. "Gotta have a defensible position when you're at war."

Adam stares. Allison cracks up, standing. "I want to go say hi to the guys downstairs. I'll be back in a bit."

She bends over Adam, and Kris can see her mouth moving by his ear. A second later he listens as she clomps down the stairs. 

A dark head peers around the pile he's stacked for the entrance of his new abode. "Come out of there." 

"What'd Allison say?" He ignores the command, pulls up a blanket that will make a perfect roof. It's a deep blue summer-weight wool shot with silver, patterned with gold moons and stars. 

"She says you've done this before, so we haven't broken you or anything."

Kris nods. "First time my place was robbed. I hid out in the cafe for a few days."

He can see the tip of a booted foot as Adam crouches down. "That bad?"

"No." He adjusts the hang of the fabric, running his fingers through the long fringe. It wasn't, just -- one of those times where you realize the place you're in is not the place you came from, and everything is harsh angles for a day or so. He'd gotten jitters every time he looked at the smashed-in window or where his stereo once lived, but he wasn't allowed to _admit_ that, because that meant he couldn't take L.A.. So he slept in the kitchen, while his supervisor dithered about calling someone to replace the glass, on a makeshift bed of office chair cushions and blankets. Only Katy accused him of squatting, so next shift he made a point of building an actual hut. Bringing the hot plate inside it so he could enjoy chicken noodle was insult to injury, he admits, but he refuses to apologize for the bendy straw rigged to fly a flag of soup labels. 

"This is worse," he adds.

"I'm sorry."

"We covered that." 

"Still," Adam says. He looks wistful. 

"Don't even try it with those puppy eyes. Get in here already."

A smile, quick and fierce, darts across the dragon's face. He's graceful on hands and knees, all fluid spine and contained movement. He drops down onto the inner cushions with a sigh of contentment, tucking crazy-long legs inside and curling his upper body to leave room. 

Kris is still sitting, fussing with the ceiling. If it doesn't hang just right it all comes crashing down. He has long experience with pillow forts, he knows things. 

"Is Allison okay downstairs?" he asks. 

"She's fine," Adam says, still watching him. There are honest-to-God rhinestones today, tiny and brilliant, set in a precise scatter across one temple and arcing down to fade into a cheekbone. They catch the dim light even under the blanket, make a constellation of his expression. "They're okay kids."

Kris looks at him and thinks, I never even had a chance. "Just okay?"

Adam shrugs one shoulder. 

Kris lies back carefully. He holds himself so that he doesn't encroach on the dragon's space. "You're not crazy about them."

He sees Adam close his eyes. "Why wouldn't I like them? They treat me like a god."

"Ah." Seriously, screw this. He settles in, pulling the dragon's arm around his waist and putting his own under Adam's head. Adam -- there's no other word for it, he _purrs_ as he draws Kris in closer to his warmth, hooking their ankles together as well. He nudges his way into the curve of Kris's neck, who's kind of grateful because it means Adam has no idea about the ridiculous smile on his face. 

"So if they annoy you," rubbing his thumb along the back of Adam's neck to feel him go loose and pliant, "why do you hang out here?"

"Because you have silly rules about 'closing time.'"

He laughs at that, and feels Adam's fingers curl against his ribs. "You're shameless."

"Mmm." Quick press of lips, and Kris tries not to shiver. "Yes, please."

"I --" Kris closes his eyes. 

Adam waits, then raises his head incrementally. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Aw." His fingers slip just below the edge of Kris's shirt to find skin. "Tell me."

He stares at the false sky above them. "A war council?" he asks. "Really?"

Adam stills, sighs again. "Yeah."

"How serious is this?"

"Pretty serious." He moves back. Kris turns his head to see shadowed eyes and an unhappy mouth. "Really serious." He brushes his thumb against Kris's bottom lip. "Maybe you should stay out of it."

"You guys are my friends. I don't want out of it."

His fingers are traveling lightly across Kris's face, but that stops them. "Are we friends?"

"Well, yeah." He blinks at the look on Adam's face. "Of course we are."

He doesn't have any warning before the dragon shifts, leveraging up onto his knees and straddling Kris's legs. He's leaning down, pressing their foreheads together before Kris can even suck in a startled breath. 

"The thing is," and he sounds absolutely, completely wrecked, and Kris wishes he could pull back to focus on his face, "I don't have any _time_."

"Um?" Kris manages from on his back.

"Things will move really fast, now."

Kris tries to lick his lips without being completely obvious. "Do you --"

Then Adam is kissing him, one hand curling around his throat and another pressing him down, keeping him still as the dragon licks his way into his mouth. He manages to get his hands on Adam's shoulders, just holding on to show him, hey, not going anywhere. Adam only kisses harder, making a noise like Kris did something that hurt. 

Next moment he's up and gone. Standing, actually, and Kris blinks as the blanket lifts away and the light shines in. When his eyes clear it's to see Adam looking down at him, blanket hanging from his shoulders. He twists it off with a sharp gesture, face inscrutable.

"I have to deal with the Hunt," he says, turning away. 

"Wait --"

"You should get Allison. I'll see you in the morning."

" _Hey_ \--"

He doesn't remember climbing to his feet and isn't aware of reaching out until Adam catches his hand in his, rings warm and smooth. But when Kris steps forward Adam takes one back, like they're dancing. 

Okay, if that's how he wants to play it. Kris stays where he is, tries to put everything (like _you the type to kiss and run_ or _stop being weird, like weird even for a pancake-eating inter-dimensional dragon_ ) into: ""Adam." 

Who turns his head to the hand he's trapped, holding it with both hands to the level of his eyes. It's a gesture of unexpected ceremony, and Kris doesn't know how to react, even as Adam brushes another kiss against his knuckles.

"I have to leave," the dragon says. He drops Kris's hand and makes his way onto the balcony. A second later he's gone, and the air is filled with the sound of rushing wings.

Kris waits for the sound to fade before making his way downstairs, feeling hollowed out, like someone took the core of him. 

~~++~~

 

"I can't believe I have to miss this," Allison grumbles later, once he's shepherded her back to the car. Several of the cultists had said their goodbyes with what looked like far more than friendly reluctance. 

"School's important," Kris says, his dutiful answer whenever she slips into the groove of complaining about her professors or the workload. It's not hypocritical, even if _he_ didn't last more than a few semesters -- he had a fallback interest. And he loves Allison, but he's told her more than once that she is not cut out for a service profession. Her face is way too expressive. 

"This is such a huge thing, though, and you don't even appreciate it. A dragon in battle again." Her eyes get round. "I wonder if he'll eat the Wild Hunt."

Kris pauses in the middle of buckling himself in. "Uh. Eat?"

"Oh, yeah. Dragons can eat, like, anything. It's their superpower." She leans back with her hands braced on the wheel, shaking her head. "Food's a big deal to them. Sometimes, I swear, their poetry reads like a menu. It's why I come by the cafe _before_ class."

Truth be told, Allison never really struck him as the moonlight-and-flowers, love/dove-true/blue poetry type. He says so, and she laughs. "Dude, dragon poetry is set to music." She grins, looking sneaky. "You should ask Adam to sing it to you sometime." 

He slouches down in the seat. "Just drive, dork."

"Awww, it'd be romantic."

"Right. _C is for Cookie_ gets me going, too."

That makes her sputter with laughter. "It's not like that, swear. It's cool -- allegorical. Like that fairytale, and the princess who loves her father as meat loves salt. Do you know that one?"

He nods, but can't keep the skepticism from his face.

"Oh my god, you _cook_ ," she says. "I thought you would be so into this."

But that's just it -- he deals with food every day, in every way he can dream up. Nothing's more prosaic to him.

"It's not the food itself, it's how they use it," she argues in response. "Food has all these meanings and rituals that go along with it -- what kind of food you share with family and friends, or how. There's this one ballad, about the daughter of a ruling house, right? And she falls in love with the daughter of _another_ ruling house, only their families aren't real friendly, but they all attend these ceremonial banquets together because like I said, that's what dragons do. So she can't _tell_ the other girl she's in love with her, no one would believe she meant it. Instead, she starts only eating whatever her beloved brings to the banquets. It shows she trusted the other girl to make sure she didn't starve and to not, you know, poison her. 

"Anyway," she continues, blithely oblivious to Kris's sudden attention, "it's a super popular ballad, even with non-dragons, so there's this saying: "eat with a dragon's heart," and it means you're like, completely pining over one person in particular. People sometimes still do it as a big romantic gestures, though now it has to be only one kind of food, which helps make your intention clear since it isn't like there are a lot of blood feuds anymore. Kind of like that flower language, where the food you choose to, you know," and here she twirls the hand not on the steering wheel, like she'd curtsey if she could, "accept from the hand of your intended has all this coded meaning."

"What do pancakes stand for?" Kris asks.

Allison huffs out a laugh. "Pan--? Oh, right." The grin on her face slowly grows. "That might work, actually. Yeah I could see how --" She catches his expression and giggles even louder. "Oh, relax, Kris, it doesn't count unless he _only_ ate the pancakes. Exclusively."

He stares right back. Lifts his eyebrows.

"He didn't."

"Did you ever see him eat anything else?" he asks carefully.

"No, but... I'm only in the cafe a couple times a week, I thought..." She swallows. "Are you sure? He didn't, like, order eggs? It would only take one time. Or a piece of toast?"

Kris looks down at his hands. "Does the coffee count?"

She sits back. "No," thoughtful. "No, it has to be food." 

After a moment: "Oh my god, that's why he kept eating the chili ones. _Kris_."

He shakes his head, willing himself to ask because it has to be important, remember all the trouble it caused: "If it has to be food, what's the deal with water?"

"Um." He looks to see her chewing the inside of one cheek. "Water is. Dragon's don't drink water, because of the whole." She makes a vague motion around her upper respiratory system. "The fire thing."

"Does it hurt them?"

"Noooooo," she draws out. "Again, it's more the whole symbolism involved. You know, quenching one's fire, and stuff." She clears her throat. "It's, uh, a big deal to take water from someone. It says you'd do anything for them, even give up your fire. Lay down your defenses." She tries for another laugh, but it's a weak effort. "Offering water to a dragon is like saying, hey, want to go steady? But, I mean, it wouldn't make sense out of context, it'd just be a weird mistake unless the parties had been, um, involved for a while, or --"

"Acting out some weird food courtship?"

Silence fills the car.

"Kris," she ventures, "did you ever..."

He rubs his hands across his eyes. "It's just water." He knows his voice is sharp. He can't help it at just this minute. "I hand out glasses of water all the time, Allison, it's part of my job."

"I thought Katy would have told you not to."

"She did." God, his head hurts. "I didn't listen."

"He wouldn't... Kris. He knows you don't know..."

"It doesn't matter." He rolls his shoulders, feeling the muscles pinch. Fixes his eyes on the night skyline. "He didn't drink it, anyway."

 

**4\. the challenge**

"Elven handmaiden."

Katy squirms. She's standing with her head bent, hands clasped in front of her. She looks like a kid being scolded, and Kris's heart would melt. Except.

"Elven. _Handmaiden_."

"You accepted it."

"I thought it was some kind of L.A. in-joke, like waiter-slash-actor or the public bus system!"

A tinge of pink appears in otherwise flawless cheeks. "There are rules about this dimension. It's very important to not break cover."

"So instead of elven princess, you put elven handmaiden."

"We find lying is difficult and uncomfortable," she wails. "It makes my skin dry and sometimes I break out!"

Adam, who appeared in the cafe as soon as Kris did (and don't think Kris has put it past him to have been lurking somewhere in the shadows until the key slid into the lock), is sitting cross-legged on the breakfast bar. Kris should yell at him to get his feet away from where people eat, he should, but today's boots -- buckled in tooled silver, with a decorated wedge that gives Adam three inches he doesn't need -- somehow look like they're an extension of the pants above them. Kris is damned if he can figure out how the illusion is created, and it's easier to unobtrusively check for the seam at this angle. Because there has to be one. Because Adam can't actually be wearing some kind of... some sort of... _bootpants_ , can he?

... whatever, Kris will wipe down the counter with Lysol later.

Adam is watching this little scene play out in front of him, corners of his mouth quirking up whenever he manages to close it around more pancakes. Carrot cake pancakes, to be specific. Kris didn't sleep well last night, instead spent a lot of time brainstorming "so you keep coming back for my food but you don't want a commitment, where do you see this relationship going?" recipes. He knows he's supposed to say it, not cook it, but that's not happening. So he crumbles candied walnuts on top of peaks of cream cheese icing redolent with vanilla extract, watches Adam cut into golden-brown stacks with bright zips of orange carrot. The dragon gives a little shimmy with each bite. 

"So," Kris begins again, "let's see if I've got this. You're an elf, Adam's a dragon. There's a guy called Simon, and he's a magician." He screws up his face, because this next bit -- and he can't believe he's saying this, how is this his life -- is the confusing part. "Simon's after you, and Adam's working for him?" He casts a helpless look at the dragon in question, who is scraping his fork along the plate. "So how come he hasn't laid siege to the cafe yet?"

"He doesn't know I've found her," Adam explains around a mouthful. 

"You've been in here every day for over a month. How does he not know?"

"Well, I'm lying to him," Adam explains, earnest. His gaze slinks back to Katy. "Some of us can pull that off." 

Katy sulks.

"Okaaaay." Kris looks back and forth between the two of them. "So, I might be reading the room wrong, but you guys don't seem like mortal enemies. Why is Adam working for the bad guys?" He frowns at Katy. "Simon _is_ the bad guy, right? Please don't be part of some evil empire."

Adam sets his iced coffee down after a long swallow, stretching his upper body in satisfaction. "Neither of them are that bad," he tells Kris. "But I wasn't even supposed to be involved."

"So what happened?"

The dragon tilts his head to one side. "It's a long story."

"I've got time."

Adam looks over at Katy.

"Oh, _now_ you want my side of it."

"You tell it better." He picks his plate back up. "And I should really finish these." 

Katy is actually fidgeting. "Well, it's really long and complicated and all you really need to know is --"

Adam makes a warning sound and waggles his fork at her. 

"Fine. Whole story." She sighs. "My family rules over the collected dimensions." She looks hugely embarrassed about it. Kris can't help the grin that's spreading across his face. "Oh, shut up," she mutters.

"Sorry. Should I bow, or something?"

She makes a rude noise. "Anyway. We're more regulators than rulers, but there used to be a lot more conflict over who held power. There were skirmishes between us and outsiders, even warring factions within the family." She shrugs. "We did a lot of damage. Or, well." She avoids his gaze. "The dragons did."

Kris blinks. "You just said it was your family that ruled."

"We used to enslave the dragons and make them fight our battles for us," she says, so quickly she sounds breathless. "We're sorcerers, and we devised a spell -- and at first it was just us, but then others figured out how to do it, and then _everyone_ was using dragons, and wow, it got really messy, a least a dozen galaxies got eaten --"

"Wait, wait," Kris puts his hands up. "Your family enslaved his species?"

"Not just us," she protests, then shrinks back at his expression. "We stopped?"

"Because you realized it was really, really wrong?"

"Um." She looks down at her hands. "Also there were cost-benefit issues."

"We used to go berserk and kill stuff," Adam volunteers. He sounds cheerful about it; it's possible he's a little sugar high. There's a smear of icing on his lips. "Craaaaaaazy amounts of stuff."

Oh man, thinks Kris, because he's still managing to find it cute. So much trouble.

"So, then," Katy begins again, twisting her hands into each other, "we called a truce and held a council and everyone decided dragons were far too dangerous to have around, either free or leashed." This elicits an involuntary noise from Kris, and she flinches. "We forced them back to their own dimension and... sealed it off." 

"You segregated them."

Katy flushes, and it is surprisingly un-pretty. "Not me personally."

"But you agreed to it. That's why you kept telling him to go back where he belongs." He sags back against the counter. "I can't believe I put chili powder in his pancakes for you."

"I _knew_ it!" Adam yelps, straightening so fast he almost tumbles off the counter. "I knew you'd fucked with my pancakes!"

"Then why'd you eat them?"

He falters. "Well, they were really good. Still."

"Right?" Kris is smug.

"Anyway," and Katy's voice has a note of what might be hurt, "it was working out fine for everyone involved --"

"Right. Separate but equal."

She stutters at that, but keeps going. "Until a certain someone got, I'm not sure, bored or something, because he started messing with the containment spells --"

"Containment spells. Do you even hear yourself?"

"-- and he couldn't break them of course, but a _another_ someone noticed all the commotion on the other side and somehow -- look, he's clever, that's why he's called Magus. Simon managed to turn the spell inside-out: the dragon can go anywhere _but_ home."

Kris sucks in a breath. His head swivels to Adam, who is of course engrossed in his pancakes. Maybe a touch more so than usual. 

"Apparently they struck a bargain." Katy's voice drags his gaze back to her, and even though she's still avoiding his eyes, he can tell she's angry. "If he brings the magician the scion of the Eleventh House, Simon will send him home."

"And that's you."

"Yes."

It was obvious what this was all about.

"He wants to make you his bride," and Kris tries for a sage nod.

She grimaces. "Ew, Kris, don't be gross! He wants a bargaining chip for trade negotiations, duh."

Or that.

"Trading for... what?"

Katy spends the next ten minutes -- literally ten minutes, he swears -- breaking it down. There are a lot of numbers and abbreviations. Someone around minute two, Kris blocks her out and begins to plan for today's menu. 

"-- makes sense? Because you're nodding like you understand."

"What? Oh, yeah, I got it." Still eating, Adam sends him a look that says _I'm onto you, buddy._ Kris refuses to feel shame.

"So here we are," Katy says. "A dragon is chasing me across dimensions, no one else wants to tangle with him, and neither of us get to go home."

"Why don't you strike a bargain with Adam yourself?"

She sighs. "I can't. Even Simon can't end the original compulsion spell, and that doesn't transfer except through defeat in combat. The bargain is just to keep the dragon from going berserk as usual."

"Sounds like you're getting a taste of your own medicine. But _Adam_ ," and don't think he didn't notice her avoidance of the name, "never asked for any of this. He's been doing the decent thing when all that stands between him and his home is a phone call." Kris is feeling more than a little unsteady, and he knows from experience he should take a moment to parse the emotions that are making his stomach churn. Instead he reaches under the register to pull out the store phone, letting it clatter onto the counter top. He nods to Adam. "Doesn't matter if it isn't local, man, it's on me."

He only gets a flash of Katy's tears before she whirls away and into the kitchen, leaving the door swinging. He has to clamp down on every muscle to keep from following her. He makes himself concentrate in the scatter shot pattern in the counter top instead. 

There's a sight touch to his shoulder, but when he looks up Adam has already pulled back his hand. "You think I'm neat," he says with a warm smile. "I get it. You don't have to beat up your best friend for me." 

"She's better than this." 

The dragon cocks his head to one side. "I believe that," he says after a moment. "But not everyone can switch gears that quickly, you know? Anyway," Adam continues, "no one's making you take sides."

Kris makes a face. "You think I should apologize?"

"And while you're in there..." He jiggles his hand so that the fork rattles across his empty plate. 

Kris gives him a look. "Please tell me you're not letting this go just because you're still hungry."

"Well," Adam says, "if it helps, she's not completely wrong about dragons."

"Not wrong?" Kris says. "I'm sorry, how is _bigotry_ not wrong?"

"Well, okay. Wrong _generally_." Huge sweeps of hands, rings like metal-taloned birds; coming in for landing to indicate himself: "But maybe not wrong _specifically_?" He slants a look at Kris through a fall of dark hair. "I really was going to eat her." 

Kris blinks. "Wouldn't that make Simon upset?"

"So it's win-win," says Adam. "I teach the Wild Hunt not to mess with a star-swallower, and I get a snack."

"Two wrongs," Kris says, after hingeing his jaw back into place, "do not make a right." 

"Doesn't have to be right to be tasty!" Adam calls cheerfully after him as he beats a retreat to the kitchen.

~~++~~

 

Because he is a completely hopeless case, he actually wrote down and stuck his "just what is _so wrong_ with my water?" collection of recipes into an old school folder and stuck it behind the coffee grinder when he came into work. When he pushes clear of the kitchen door Katy doesn't turn. It's the work of a moment to yank the folder clear, skim through his notes, and get to work. Katy continues to stack and put away the dishes that were in the washer overnight. 

It's funny, he thinks, but they often work together in silence. Neither of them are particularly chatty. In fact, he often felt the fact that they could stand side by side like this, each absorbed in their own duties, and walk away smiling was actually a sign of how solid their friendship had become. He'd never thought Katy's silence could sound so miserable. He realizes he's been staring into the bowl where he's cracked the eggs for the past three minutes, as if attempting to make it give up its secrets.

"I was out of line," he suddenly breaks the quiet. "I'm sorry."

Katy sighs, slumps. "Are you?" she asks, but immediately shakes her head. "No, I know what you meant. I'm sorry, too -- I never should have let you get involved in this."

"What could you do?" He starts gathering up what he needs from around the kitchen: bowls, limes, flour. He fits them all into the crook of his arm as he travels from fridge to cupboards. "Call up the dragon extermination squad? No, don't tell me," he says as her expression changes to one of grim determination, "I really don't want to know."

"Maybe you should know." She turns, one fist balanced on her hip. "Not what I could have done, but what he is. What he's really capable of."

"Katy." He stops her with a look as he comes back to the counter with his bounty. "Don't."

"But --"

"He's my friend," and there shouldn't be a twinge in his chest when he says it, he has no right to ask for anything else. "You both are."

She ponders that, forehead delicately creased. "I still don't like him," she says.

"So don't you be friends with him." He preps a couple things. Dumps sugar into water and cranks up the heat below the saucepan. "But I really want you to stay mine."

She wraps his shoulders in a hug, immediate and fierce, before quickly letting him go. "Don't be stupid," she says. "Like I'd abandon you with a dragon around. You _so_ need me at your back."

"Thanks, Rambo. Hey, stir that for me, okay? Tell me when it starts to thicken." After handing her a wooden spoon he starts the pancakes, folding together brown sugar and butter. "If he's such a big bad, how were you planning to shake him off your trail in the long run?"

She squirms. "I wasn't, really."

He pops the bowl into the microwave to melt, turn back around. "So, what, you were gonna stay undercover until Simon got bored?" She's very carefully not looking at him. "...Katy?"

She curls her fingers around the wooden spoon. "You can't know what it means for a dragon to be without its own kind. Even when we -- even back then. If one got separated from the others for a long time, they'd, um, just kind of give up and, just sort of... fade." She stirs slowly, head down. "I thought the problem would take care of itself."

" _Katy_." He forces himself not to shout, bending down to rest his forehead on the edge of the counter. "I can't _believe_ you."

"I just thought Simon would see it was useless and send him back!"

"Right. I should be glad you're not completely heartless."

"Oh, well, sorry, I was only running for my life! With an eater of worlds at my heels, I mean really." She stirs a little too quickly, he bites his tongue instead of warning her about splashing. "Listen, you get that he's not usually this... friendly? In all the attempts to get his kind to knuckle under, you're the first to go, 'Oh, I know the trick! A breakfast assortment!'" 

"What did they try?" he asks, aware he's being mocked but still bewildered.

She throws her hands up in a balletic, full-body shrug. "The usual, Kris! Money, power, sacrificial maidens -- whatever _most_ gleefully destructive carnivores go for!"

The microwave dings. "Well, that last is an obvious wash," and realizes he doesn't want to say that two seconds too late.

Katy freezes. "Oh-h-h?" Kris has a reluctant admiration for her ability to hit five distinct notes with one syllable. " _Oh._ "

Kris hustles back to the counter, adding the contents of the bowl to the dry ingredients, eggs, vanilla.

"So the thing with the water --"

"No, I didn't know about that."

"But you know now?"

"Yeah."

"And you'd still..?"

The batter comes together perfectly, thick and yielding. "Yeah."

"Oh." There's a beat, and then, sadly: "Oh, Kris."

The griddle is greased and hot, so Kris starts to pour out ladlefuls. 

"I know he... but dragons, Kris, they're so much about their clan --"

"I wasn't going to ask him to -- I mean. He shouldn't have to choose." His throat sticks, and he swallows with difficulty. "I wouldn't want him to." 

Katy puts her head on his shoulder as she continues to stir the pot. 

When the syrup thickens Kris adds lime peel in long strips that twist and curl when they hit the hot liquid, finishing by juicing a few over the pot and tossing in star anise. He makes more pancakes to give that time to come together, extras he can warm up on order for the breakfast rush. Katy moves behind him, chin still on his shoulder, watching. She smells like the memory of hiding in the honeysuckle bushes with his cousins while they sucked out nectar between their teeth. 

He plates a few pancakes separately when the kitchen is redolent with lime and licorice and adds spoonfuls of syrup, a few star-shaped pods sliding through the liquid like lazy meteors. Cuts a wedge with a fork and feeds it to her. Her chin digs into him when she chews. He takes his own bite. The brown sugar is cut with sharp citrus, rounded out by a lingering dark sweetness. 

"What do you think?" he asks.

She kisses his cheek, a bit stickily. "I always think you're amazing." 

~~++~~

 

He sends out the pancakes with Katy, who decides he's going to stay in the kitchen while she deals with the breakfast crowd. He gives a token protest but she's adamant, with a look in her eye that says if he resists too hard she's going to lock him in. He lets her win this one, reading orders off the tickets and wrapping himself in the heat and sizzle of his favorite place in the world. He wonders if the two of them planned it that way on purpose. As they come in at sporadic intervals (Katy alone, or Adam with Katy -- she doesn't leave them alone with each other) to explain how this is going to unravel, Kris can feel himself growing ever more frayed at the edges. He's not... this is not his arena, military strategy and optimal positioning, and a lot of other words that make it clear why the cafe had a 20% profit bump when Katy came on board. So he's grateful they give him the security blanket of the kitchen, and Katy runs orders from there instead of the pickup counter though that usually drives her nuts.

There's a squeak at the kitchen door. He turns, ready to tell Katy that if she's going to be impatient about the omelet orders she can start cracking eggs, but it's Adam. He's almost clinging to the door frame with an arm braced to hold the swinging door. He meets Kris's gaze only to tuck his chin down, with an abortive look over his shoulder that makes Kris wonder who's distracting Katy while Adam sneaks across the drawbridge. He jerks his head without thinking, and the dragon slips over the threshold.

"Hey."

Kris gives another jerk of his head to show he's heard.

"I just talked with Allison." Adam is standing as awkwardly as Kris has ever seen him -- not uncomfortable, but a far cry from his usual of cocked hips, shoulders thrown back. This is more formal: tall and attentive, though if Kris thought himself any kind of body language expert he'd think the foot half-raised from the floor was pretty telling. "She said she told you about the, um." He flicks his fingers outward. "How I. Uh."

"Roped me into some kind of dragon-style dating?" He flips the eggs. "In front of an audience that understood exactly what was going on, even though I didn't?" So, okay, maybe he hadn't just been thinking about recipes last night, once the full connotations had hit him. It explains why Mr. O'Gillans hasn't been able to look Kris in the face without giggling this past month. 

There's a sigh behind him, but he refuses to turn around. "I'm sorry," he hears.

Kris thinks about kissing under a blanket embroidered like the sky and, though it takes several tries, swallows down _for which part?_ "You do that a lot?"

A pause. "Okay, I deserved that," Adam says. "But no. I don't."

"So why me?" His shoulder hitches. "Sit down or something."

Adam does, somewhere Kris can watch him just out of the corner of his eye: shine on his boots and cheekbones, and the shadow of lashes. He's drawing himself in tight, arms around his knees and Kris hates it, thinks Adam is never the kind of person who should feel confined in space or body.

"It started out as -- maybe not a mistake, but an accident?" the dragon says. "I really like pancakes." He looks down at the floor. "It made Katy mad, and that was fun." He sounds so wistful, Kris doesn't have the heart to chew him out. "Then I realized she wasn't the only one -- I mean, it'd made sense the elf knew the story, they think they know everything about everyone. I had no idea so many others would know what I was doing." He shrugs, looking lost. "By then I didn't want to stop."

Katy opens the door and comes to a full stop to glare at the kitchen's newest occupant. Kris shoves the latest orders into her hands just as she's opening her mouth and propels her back out into the cafe, door swinging behind her. He turns to Adam with a brush of his hands. "And the water thing?" 

Adam jerks like a puppet on inexpert strings. "I would _never_ \-- Kris, okay, I fucked up with -- with everything else, I know, but I would never have taken advantage your -- our --" He searches for words, casting about the cramped kitchen. "I wouldn't do that to you. I promise."

Kris focuses on the second omelet, because eggs are tricky and they need the attention. That's why. "So you didn't want to... I mean, if I didn't know, you didn't want to."

"Yes, exactly," Adam jumps at the opening. 

"Not for any other reason." He takes a deep breath. "Because you should tell me, if there is. I won't mind, I'd just like to know."

A touch to the inside of his elbow, two fingers crooked to carefully pull his attention the dragon's way. Adam's eyes are big and solemn. "There's no other reason."

Kris looks away, but from the smile that spreads over Adam's face it's probably a lost cause to try and hide his response to that. Whatever. He tests the edges of his eggs.

"Also. I mean..." The pause has a particular weight to it Kris can almost taste. "You know about me. Now." His fingers play with the looped chains on his wrists. "If you wanted... The important part is getting Simon back off Katy, but I don't... he doesn't have to..."

Kris has five seconds of bafflement before the hint smacks him between the eyes.

He _asked_ , see, because he just doesn't know when to quit. Sometime between the post-lunch lull and the 4-o'clock tea timers, he wondered in Katy's general vicinity if the dragon dimension was worth maybe a day trip. You know. For tourists. Interested in cross-dimensional cultural activities and, uh, exposure. If she maybe knew anything about that.

It was clear he had all the opacity of a soap bubble from the look she gave him. "Kris," gently, "they're fifth-dimensional beings."

He stared at her. He'd flunked geometry. "That's... bad?"

She shrugged. "Not bad, but -- he doesn't look anything like you'd understand, not even in his "real" form. That's third-dimensional space trying to make sense of what he is and failing. Pretty badly." She bites her lip. "Not as bad as if you tried it the other way around. You can only compress, you know? You can't expand into a reality you never carried in the first place." She looked away from the expression he couldn't force into nonchalance. "If you tried it, you... okay, let's just say you shouldn't try it." Kris got the message: no dragon world for dimensionally-limited earthlings. 

Kris can't follow. And Adam is offering to stay behind. 

His hand tightens on the spatula's handle until the plastic creaks. 

"Just _stop_ ," he spits, and again Adam jerks. "What are you -- are you suicidal? Why would you --" He can't look at the dragon. "Katy told what happens to dragons when they get cut off from -- from their family, she was _counting_ on it. She thought you'd stop being a problem." He twists the towel from his apron pocket around his hands, because he needs to do something with them besides punching Adam in the face. "Now you're going back, you're going to be safe, and you want to -- for _what_? For a short order cook with a crush, and you think I'd actually want you to..." The eggs are ruined. He dumps them and grabs the bowl to crack fresh ones. "Just get out." 

Adam sits and waits for a while: for him to calm down, Kris thinks, for him to take it back and say sorry. Well, he won't. He's right about this. Maybe he's being a jerk at the same time, but he's right. Adam wouldn't even kiss him when he felt Kris didn't know what he was getting into. (Apparently he wasn't above staking a claim, but then, he is a dragon.) He can't really be surprised when Kris turns around and refuses to take more than anyone should give.

Adam stands. He makes it to the doorway before he pauses.

"I didn't know why I was lasting so long," he says, and Kris has to swallow at the tone of his voice. "They say you can't mistake it when you're about to fade. You stop wanting -- anything. You start to feel like nowhere is safe." He breathes out, slow and steady. "I kept thinking when it got bad I'd tell Simon I'd found her, but I could wait until then. Day after day after day, and I'd think: maybe tomorrow."

The dragon waits, and Kris thinks Adam's waiting for him to turn. He doesn't. "It never happened," Adam finally says. "I missed home, god, so much. But I felt safe. And I never stopped... wanting." He draws a ragged breath. "I figured out it was because of this place. Which means it was because of you."

He leaves Kris alone in the kitchen.

It's okay, Kris thinks. He can't be sad. There are people like this, amazing, special people, and they come into your life like lightning storms: everything crackling with energy, everything shown in a photo-negative of what you're used to. You know they don't belong with you just by the nature of what they are -- the opposite of everything else.

You know they're not yours to keep.

~~++~~

 

When Simon arrives Kris is reminded, for a moment, of the Stir-Fry Lawyer. (Who might have doggedly returned to the cafe for a while, even after multiple fire alarms, for reasons that had nothing to do with food. Hey, Kris has game.) The lawyer was fair where this man is salt-and-pepper, slender where Simon has the heft of muscle in his broad shoulders. But there's something in the way they both present themselves. Adam's look, he realizes, even with the intimidating volume of sparkle it contains, is an invitation, a tempt. Men like the lawyer, like this magician who leashed a dragon to hunt a princess, use their presentation to make sure people keep back. 

Right away he knows this is Simon with the vicious sideways kick Katy delivers to his shin when the man walks through the door, and how her shoulders fall into a line of studied nonchalance. There's also the entourage camped outside: half a dozen motorcycle toughs in sleek jackets and wraparound sunglasses that turn their faces into mirrored masks, standing guard around the low-slung machine Simon parked right at the cafe door with its engine still growling.

And there's Adam, a half-step behind Simon at all times. His face is impassive as he stares at some point in the distance. It shouldn't bother Kris. They talked about this -- they can hardly afford for Simon to realize his pet dragon has become, for all intents and purposes, a double agent. But Adam looks like a stranger, all the warmth drained away from his features, mobile mouth held still and sullen. He has a sudden flash to the first time Adam walked into the cafe. A finger pokes at the center of his spine to startle him out of his reverie. Katy steps ahead and he falls to her flank, mirroring Adam at Simon's.

"I understand you've finally chosen a champion." Simon's tone is polite, no one could fault him for it -- but there's an air of the perfunctory as well, as if despite the ceremony this is merely an elaborate form of paperwork.

"Correct, Magus." Kris only has to turn his head slightly to see her: hair back, chin up, meeting Simon's condescension with clear-eyed authority. It occurs to him that while the circumstances and the subterfuge had surprised him, he had never been shocked by the fact of what she was.

"Princess," as Simon's eyes flicker over Kris. "Far be it from me to concede a clear advantage, but... are you sure about this?" He doesn't have to move his lips -- somehow, Kris marvels, his _whole face_ gives the impression of a nasty smirk. "The Wild Hunt could finish this one off without much trouble, I hardly understand the need to loose my dragon."

Kris's gaze darts to those imposing figures in his parking lot, hogging the open spaces and looking like they got lost on their way to a Michael Jackson video. One of them catches him looking and takes off sunglasses. The eyes are nothing but sucking vortexes of darkness, and Kris shivers.

"I believe you've perverted the ritual of combat enough as it is, don't you?"

Katy told Kris that court tradition ruled no direct fighting between enemies. Instead, disputes were settled via representatives. The system had been implemented to keep massively powerful magic-workers from terrorizing those less powerful. The thought was that would-be tyrants were curtailed by a reliance on others to fight their battles, as anyone whose ambition outweighed their courtesy would quickly find himself without a champion. 

("Unless he gets people to fight for him in exchange for the chance to see their family again." "I didn't say it was _perfect_. I said it was a _system_.")

Any traces of amusement drain from Simon's face. The overhead lights flicker, and Kris hears several kitchen appliances stutter alive and off, start and stop, as if the electricity were surging. The walls _vibrate_ , just a little, the knickknacks and stolen road signs he's hung up shivering in response. Kris twitches, heart thudding. Okay, he promised he wouldn't let Simon psych him out, but it's been a long day and the cafe is his baby, this is not cool. He's trying to keep it together but he can feel a fine tremor working its way through him as well.

Someone starts to hum. Just a few bars, something high and sweet; a descant to an unvoiced melody that makes Kris's fingers itch for his guitar even though he hasn't played in -- wow. The lights soothe at the sound, and Kris hears appliances settle fretfully back in the kitchen.

It's coming from Adam. Of course.

Simon turns. Kris can't see his face when he does that, but guesses that Simon is not happy. Kris watches as Adam meets the magician stare for stare, and for a second his heart is in his throat at the thought that this could all fall to pieces just because Adam doesn't like other people throwing their weight around. Then Adam cocks his head, expression mild but with the clear indication: does Simon _want_ to spook the natives? A few customers are looking up to frown at the lights, wondering aloud if that'd just been a tremor.

(A bunch of regulars -- glued to their plates from the moment Simon walked in the door -- hunch even more determinedly over their food at this new disturbance. Which, honestly, is the exact opposite of stealth.)

Simon turns back with a sigh.

"Tomorrow morning," he says, sounding bored with the enterprise before it begins. "I shall strive limit my apparent perversions until then." 

Katy says something in response, but it's Kris's gaze Simon continues to hold as he waits. Kris finds it in himself to nod. Katy has already put a notice on the door in her curling script that they will re-open again tomorrow at noon. She'd had to ditch the first draft after Kris, morose and self pitying, added the grim postscript _IF EVER_.

This satisfies Simon. He turns on his heel to leave, and Kris finds himself the focus of Adam's attention -- his skin prickles in a rush of awareness, it's amazing how much he _felt_ the lack of it before -- but the dragon doesn't linger. Doesn't smile. Just gives Kris one last look before following his master out the door.

A touch to his elbow, and Kris looks to see Katy's own worried gaze. "It'll be fine," she says. "It will all work out." She means: Simon will desist, and Adam will go home.

He smiles to hide his sinking heart. "I know."

 

**5\. the return**

"Has the ritual of combat been explained to you?" Simon asks. There's a breeze ruffling the collar of his white shirt and attempting to alleviate the heat that's already bearing down. It's just the four of them. Katy said it would be.

 _"Combatants and their champions only," she says, firm. "And it has to be in a public place. Not_ too _public, for obvious reasons, but somewhere you, in particular, don't have a claim on."_

_"Why?"_

_She screws up her face. "It's hard to explain how it works, but -- you belong here. We don't. So if your connection to a place is strong enough, you can actually force us out." She smiles. "You can also draw us in. There's a reason this place is so popular with, um, expats. You tend to broadcast."_

_"Oh. So that's why you guys hang around." He nods, then shrugs. "It's cool."_

_She frowns at him for a long moment before she gets it. Rolling her eyes: "Right, right -- also, the food is amazing. It's win-win. Kris, stop pouting."_

Kris squints into the early morning sunlight. "Yeah, I know the rules."

"Just to be certain." Wow, this guy really doesn't _like_ him. Kris would be a little hurt, but considering the context. "My champion -- my dragon -- cannot fight you just yet." The curl of the guy's lip says, and that's the very first rule out the window when I am King of Everything. "First we contend for his leash."

 _Katy explained it twice. He's still confused. "His_ what _?"_

 _"It's like..." She ponders the issue. "Okay, nuclear weapons. Bringing a dragon to a challenge is like packing a personal nuclear weapon. Get it? They destroy_ everything. _They can't be controlled or directed. I mean --" She shudders delicately. "If we actually let dragons fight all the time, there'd be almost nothing left. Two dragons against each other, forget it."_

_"Yeah, I remember, so you locked them up."_

_"Right, but before that, we tried to mitigate the problem. Combat rules: dragons are contended before each fight. Say the other side wins their leash. Without a champion, the fight might not happen at all. Destruction averted. Got it?"_

_"So if I win the first fight," slowly, because someone will stop him before he starts to sound stupid. "I'll... own... Adam." No luck so far._

_"His leash. But, yes."_

_"If I lose, does Simon own me?"_

_"Don't be ridiculous."_

_"Oh, don't be ridiculous, says the_ slave owner _."_

_"Kris," Adam interrupts. He's working through his second round of pancakes: buttermilk, because Kris doesn't need the distraction of fiddling with an untried recipe right now and stop looking like I killed your cat, Adam, it doesn't have to be fancy to taste good. There's a glass of iced coffee, slick with condensation, by the dragon's elbow. "It's shitty, but it's not Katy's fault."_

_"Can't we fix it?"_

_Adam shakes his head._

_"So you don't get a say at all?" Kris thinks a minute. "Wait, is that why you guys started going berserk and ripping into whatever you could? So that people would think you weren't worth having as a weapon and leave you alone?"_

_Adam pauses with a fork halfway to his open mouth. Puts it back on the plate. Narrows his eyes at Kris. "Stop being smart," he says after a moment._

"Right, okay." Kris nods and tries to look like he is gung ho.

"Chose the form," Simon tells him.

Because, as if things weren't bad enough. Apparently the whole "leash transfer" thing mean Kris had to "prove mastery" over Adam in both forms, which meant he has to "press upon the dimensional body" to shift from one form to the other and at one point he put his hands over his ears to block the words coming from Katy's mouth and he rocked back and forth muttering, "God, this is so weird and rapey, oh God," while Adam shook so hard with repressed laughter he knocked over the maple syrup.

"Dragon," Kris says. "You know, storybook version."

"Your funeral."

Adam steps forward so that he's equidistant between the two opponents. His back is to Simon, and he flickers a wink in Kris's direction before he... changes.

Adam a slinky snakecat of a dragon with long glittery whiskers and burnished fire in his scales. He's big enough -- not so big he can be seen over the tops of the buildings around them, but Kris has to control the twitch of muscles in his legs because _it's a predator it's gonna eat us run run run._ He's not any one color, either, instead his hide is the hue of polished abalone: dark, but containing the sheen of greens-pinks-violets-blues as it catches the light.

Kris is putting out a hand touch before he catches himself and draws back. Adam chirps and preens as if he knew exactly what Kris was thinking. His head is vaguely triangular in this shape, with a long, rolled snout and flared nostrils. His eyes -- the same startling shade of blue, which Kris finds reassuring -- are slit-pupiled like a cat's, and as big as Kris's entire palm. Adam pulls back on his long, sinuous neck to give a quick trill of flame.

"Well," Simon's demand jerks Kris back. "Get on with it."

 _"I'm confused," Kris interrupts Katy and Adam, mid-war council, who've been hashing out: Sword? No, he doesn't have any training. Cleaver, maybe? I've got twice his reach, what's to keep me from just taking it? Well, we're not going to send him out empty-handed. No, of course, not, but let's be_ realistic _\--_

_"Why are you guys talking like I'm going to fight Adam?" he asks as they finally turn to him._

_Katy bites her lip while Adam reaches out with: "Kris, we have to at least make it look good."_

_"You're kidding." Kris rocks backward on the back of legs of his chair. "There's no way to fake like it's a fair fight."_

_"We thought, maybe, in human form..." Katy sounds like she knows a lost cause when she talks about one._

_"Simon's not going to buy it. No one would, he's huge."_

_Adam blinks and draws back. "I prefer 'statuesque,' actually."_

_"You're stunning," Kris says. "But Simon's going to call foul -- he can do that, right? -- if we pretend I'm not punching way above my weight class."_

_"He can do that," she admits. "Sabotage from a champion is an automatic forfeit by whichever party suborned it."_

_"Besides, I'm not coming at Adam with a weapon," Kris adds, and ducks his head when he sees the way the dragon is smiling. "I just -- I'm sorry, the whole thing sucks. Katy, I'm trying, but there's no way this guy is going to believe I'm such a threat that Adam is forced to change forms."_

_She sighs, resting her forehead on clenched hands, while Adam frowns. "I don't have to feel_ threatened _, actually," he says slowly. "That's never been a condition of combat. I just need a reason to change. Aside from wanting the other guy to win."_

_Kris pauses in his rocking, balancing with his sneakers pressing against the linoleum. "Just a reason?"_

_"It'd have to be something real," Adam warns. "Something good."_

_"A good reason." He lets his chair fall on all four legs with a thud. There's a plan taking shape in his head, and he's already grinning. "We can do that."_

"Ready weapons," Simon says, bored. 

Katy insisted on carrying the cooler to the, uh, battleground. Kris is more than capable, but she voted for ceremony and he _is_ her champion. It's the same one he threw in the car when he first moved to LA, packed full of food for the road. Kris has an appreciation for highway dives, but not necessarily days' worth of appreciation. Warm things were wrapped in insulating bags, cold things in thermoses, and he ate like a king down Route 66. Everything he needed was still in there when he dragged it out last night. As he takes the handle from Katy, he kneels and tries not to sneeze at the dry dirt kicked up when he places the cooler on the ground. Ceremony, right.

Kris can see Simon frowning. The magician looks at Adam, who has coiled back on his haunches, long, sinuous body settling in loops heavy with muscle. Adam looks back and chirps.

The cooler's lid shields what Kris is doing from their eyes, and it's a matter of moments to load up the still-warm plate. He unscrews a container to pour out its contents. He opens the last, smallest tupperware, but then takes a deep breath. Looks up.

"Say the word."

Eyes narrow, Simon nods. "Begin."

Adam goes up like a plume of smoke, stories high now that he's vertical. He spreads -- woah, where was he hiding _those_ \-- his wings, the skin drawn thin enough to spy daylight between the long, hollow bones. He screams, sweet and piercing, and the world shivers.

Kris spears the sautéed mango slice with a fork to lay it on top of the stack of chili-chocolate pancakes with their soupcon of chocolate fudge sauce (non-revenge recipe). He holds it up and calls out, squinting into the sun, "Wanna do-over?"

Pause.

Then a rushing wind, like a vacuum collapsing, and warm fingers wrap themselves over Kris's as the dragon reaches to take the plate, laughing. 

"With you? Any time," Adam whispers in his ear. Then there's a spread of wet and -- aw, man, he just got licked.

"You _must_ be joking," Simon says, as Kris scrubs at his ear. Adam settles cross-legged on the ground, already chewing a bite. "Highness, if this is some pitiful attempt to suborn my dragon, may I remind you --"

"Your dra -- Adam," Katy covers smoothly, "has been courting my champion for some time. Neither of us has the right to deny our champions their cultural traditions simply to fight for us, and Adam may continue his suit as necessary."

You'd never think, seeing her calm and composed like this, that she did a brief victory lap around the kitchen when they figured out that particular loophole. "What did I say?" she demanded, bouncing up in his face. "What did I say? The system works!"

"If this is something you cooked up in the last few days --"

"As if I would," she flung back. "There are a _number_ of witnesses that can back it up."

"He made sure of that," Kris mutters, still trying to dry out his ear. "Dude, there is a time and place for tongue."

Adam beams. "You love it."

"Be as it may," Simon says, peevish, "there is no reason for him to change form simply to eat... those."

"Hey," Kris looks up sharply. "Fork's not for decoration, buddy. People eat my food like they were brought up right, or they don't eat it at all."

"It takes better like this, anyway," Adam says, cutting away another bite. 

Simon has a moment where he visibly struggles with the urge to kill them with his bare hands. He nods. "Victory is granted."

"Acknowledged," Katy jumps on the admission. "Do you forfeit?"

"I do not," coolly. "As the initial combat has finished --"

"Excuse me," they turn to look at Adam, who waves a fork though the air as he chews. After a pointed swallow: "It has not finished, I'm still eating, hello."

"Adam," Katy hisses. "C'mon!"

He huddles around the plate. "Do I have to," he whines at Kris.

"Not finishing the apology pancakes is like not really accepting the apology."

"See, this is why I --" Adam gives several blinks and then screws up his face. "Damn, they still make my nose itch. Uh, Kris, did you --"

"Just a sec." 

"I remember when ritual combat was fought with a lot more dignity," Katy mutters, hand across her eyes.

"Yeah?" Kris asks mildly as he hands Adam a thermos. "And look where that got you."

By the time the last, fudgey crumb is chased down, Katy's foot is tapping like the roll of a snare drum. Simon is doing something on a smartphone. Adam hands over the plate to be packed away. The cooler is a lot lighter in Kris's grip as he stands. 

"Quite finished?" Simon asks. Adam nods. "Thank you."

And he unleashes the Wild Hunt, bearing down at them from every side like the heart of a thunderstorm.

 _Whomp_. Kris gets the breath knocked out of him as he's lifted up, up and away from the noise and smoky stench of engine oil. He has to remind himself not to kick and fight Adam's grip, even knowing he promised, as the shining blonde of Katy's hair is swallowed up in the Hunt like a banner beneath a dark ocean wave. 

When his feet hit rooftop Adam changes between one breath and the next, catching Kris around the waist to keep his balance.

Or maybe not, because as he straightens Adam jerks him off his feet into --

"Mmph." Kris breaks the kiss. "Aren't you going to --"

"In a minute," Adam whispers into his mouth, and Kris taste spice and sweetness and can't help it, his fingers tighten on broad shoulders and he fights the urge to climb the dragon like a tree. 

"Seriously," he gasps after another minute. "I know Katy said she could handle this part, but--"

Adam sighs. He gives Kris space to turn around. "See for yourself."

Kris gapes as he peers over the side of the roof. Adam fits himself happily against his back, arms around Kris's waist. "Are those -- is she using _two_ swords?"

"Mmm." Adam nuzzles the side of Kris's neck. "Elves. Forever overcompensating."

"Oh, hey now. If she has to play nice so do _you_ \--" He ends on a sudden high pitch, grabbing at the hand that'd been about to... go places. "Fights to the death do it for you?"

Adam laughs, soft and delighted, with his nose in Kris's hair. "You fixed my pancakes."

Kris, watching his best waitress and friend introduce a dozen motorcycle toughs to a world of pain, allows himself to relax back into Adam's warmth. The dragon feels like he has a furnace beneath his skin, even hotter than the sticky summer air. Kris finds he doesn't even care. "Yeah, well." He twines their fingers together, returning the fierce possession of the dragon's grip. "You deserve better."

Adam stills. He bends his head until it rests in the crook of Kris's neck, his heart thudding against Kris's shoulder blades. They stand like that for Kris doesn't know how long, and he tries to catalogue every feeling, every sensory impression. He tells himself, remember this. Whatever else, you had this.

He has to clear his throat before he talks. "Okay, she was pretty adamant I stay out of the way, but she's reached Simon. I don't think she'd mind if you went down and kept those Hunt guys off her back." 

They both know what he means -- _please_ and _before I ask you to stay_. Adam kisses his cheek, damp eyelashes brushing against Kris's temple. He steps off the edge of the roof as if onto a stage, and Kris can hear his terrible cry as he falls upon the battle. 

Kris turns. The cooler fell out of his hand and tumbled onto its side when he landed. He straightens it, lifting out a couple emergency sandwiches. He sits on the edge of the roof to watch it all, legs swinging, and eats lunch.

~~++~~

 

"Those are bad _ass_ ," is the first thing he tells Katy as Adam sets him back on the ground. He touches down amid the remains of the fight, motorcycle helmets scattered like abandoned husks. A few are smoking slightly.

"I know, right?" She angles the blades so they can admire the sheen together.

"Hey," Adam says, petulant that people (Kris) are not paying him any attention. "I did a thing, too." He indicates his back. "With wings!"

"That was cool," Kris says. "But I knew you could do that." Now that he's this close to Katy, he can see she was hiding them in a back harness, the straps peaking out from under her dress. "I didn't know she had swords."

Adam is aghast. 

"I thought princesses were about ball gowns and stuff," Kris says.

"That is because you live in a terribly backward dimension, Kristopher." She casts a fond look at her weapons. "It's good to use these again. Makes centuries of morning drills feel almost worth it."

"Is that why you never drop stuff? I thought you took ballet or something."

"Nope." She sheathes the swords in a fluid motion.

"Yes, yes," says Simon. His white shirt is dusty and untucked, and Kris can see a shining loop of something around one wrist that glimmers in and out of existence. "Tiny but tough on the teeth, your princess. If the rest of you are quite finished."

Simon and Katy had already finished _their_ business, in what had been by a clear win Kris's favorite part of the fight: watching the diminutive blonde stand on a guy's back, pinning him to the dirt with crossed swords at his neck as they negotiated terms at the tops of their lungs. Kris thinks he'd be a lot more involved in politics if he got to see that on a regular basis.

"Kris," Katy says, gentle.

Right.

He turns to Adam, whose mouth is twisted with unhappiness. Kris watched him, too, when he dealt with the Wild Hunt -- the screaming, shivering power of him as he tossed them off left and right, jaws snapping, claws sharp. He tried to feel fear or even trepidation, connecting the beast with the same young man who'd sat in his cafe day after day in his crazy clothes and crazy hair. But all he felt was...

"Wait," and he grabs Katy's arm above the elbow to drag her close. "How can we trust him to send Adam back? Maybe it's a trick, maybe he just wants us to think Adam's safe and home when he's really --"

"He wouldn't do that."

"How do you _know_?"

"Because he's pretty honorable."

"He sent a dragon after you!"

"Yes." She shrugs. "Honorably." She tugs free of his fingers. "You've got to say goodbye now, honey. You don't have much time."

"This is a reoccurring problem with us," Kris says to Adam as she steps away.

Adam's returning "yeah" is small and miserable. 

"You're the best thing I never knew could happen to me," Kris says.

I can't believe I said that, is his next thought, and he can hear Simon muttering, "oh, spare me," but who cares because the unhappy look on Adam's face is unknitting as he opens his mouth --

And disappears.

"The _hell_ , Simon!" Katy explodes. 

"Highness, you have bested me and I will acquiesce to your demands before a full audience at court," he says flatly. "I will not be tortured with maudlin theatrics." 

Kris is still staring at the spot were Adam was, unblinking, as if that could make him reappear. Katy puts her arm around him as she sighs. "You called that guy honorable," he says. He feels numb.

"An honorable _asshole_ ," she bites out. "But he is." She gives him a little squeeze. "Adam's okay. I promise." She presses a kiss to his temple. "He's back with the people who love him." 

Kris finally lets his eyes shut, keeps them that way. They're prickly from the dry heat; he winces as they begin to water. "Yeah."

~~++~~

 

The system dictates that Tuesdays, on his break, he swings by the Greek grocery a few blocks from the cafe to buy kurabiya for the pre-dinner crowd, people who like something sweet with their afternoon coffee. Chocolate is a favorite, but he prefers the orange ones: thick-domed pastries embedded with sweet raisins. They look solid enough, but one bite and the whole cookie crumbles, spilling delicate crumbs and dissolving just a touch quicker than you can eat it up. Kris chases crumbs across his palm as he walks back to the cafe and tries to ignore the metaphor.

It's not that he's depressed. He's not. You can't be depressed because someone you knew for a few months is gone. Not when everything else is fine: the same happy, busy routine that occupies your days and nights to the point where you really don't have _time_ to be depressed, or mope, or wonder how the lack of one person can create so much absence.

(Sometimes, and jeez but this is stupid, sometimes he finds himself looking at the clock with growing annoyance, and realize he's wondering what's keeping Adam, and does he really expect Kris to keep his booth free. Once Kris set aside a plate of the latest pancake experiment and it wasn't until Katy came into the kitchen, picked up the dish and wondered who on earth he expected would eat it, that he noticed what he'd done. It fed the family of stray cats that lurk around their garbage bins, because eating it himself just seemed too sad.)

It's been over a month since the battle with Simon, and he's okay. Katy can stop sending him sideways looks like she expects a breakdown any day now. Not that she's sympathetic. Maybe it's too much to ask that she miss a carnivore who saw her as a pesky aperitif. He just -- sometimes it can be rough (he's okay, though) when she goes around with a little half-smile on her face, like this past week, as if life really couldn't be better now that Adam is gone. Even Allison has found some source of disgusting ( _stop asking if he's okay_ ) cheerfulness recently. He won't admit that one smarts -- it had helped to see Allison acting as despondent as he had refused to let people know he felt. Even that mean consolation is gone since Katy drew her aside for a whispered conversation over espresso dopios (he tells Allison they'll stunt her growth, she shoots back that he would know) which lapsed into silence every time he passed within three feet of their table. Not that he was trying to listen in. He just gets a little protective of Allison, so when somebody makes her sniffle into a bunch of napkins -- even if it's Katy, even if the watery smile means Allison wasn't too upset -- in his own cafe, it's natural to swing by every ten minutes to see if they need anything. Katy had been out of line, calling him a mother hen.

The sun beats down as he trudges along the sidewalk, concrete slabs throwing back the same heat. It feels like it's baking the strength right out of his limbs. He pauses with his hand on the door handle to his cafe. It wouldn't kill him to take a vacation. Or not a vacation, he amends -- as the part of him that will forever be food-people and forever recognize _there is no time off from food_ rears up in alarm -- but maybe a break. A long weekend. He can fly home, let his mom fuss and his dad give him hugs that last two seconds longer than usual in recognition of how tired Kris looks. (Because Kris may be in denial, but he owns a mirror.) He can stuff himself on someone else's food and figure out why he no longer feels like he fits inside his own skin.

The metal handle is sun-warmed as he pulls it toward him thinking, yeah, maybe all he needs is a break. He steps inside, the cooler air of the cafe breaking over him like a wave.

Is -- is that _glitter_ in the air?

It is. It's also misted across the floor in looping swirls, as if angels have been square dancing. It's not too noticeable -- just a faint sparkle in the corner of your eye, a glimmer that could pass for mica in the rock -- but Kris is so attuned to this place he knew the deep freezer was on the fritz two days before the ice cream went runny. He feels small changes in his bones and this isn't a small change. This is electricity on the wind, a crackle of anticipation that carries the faintest whisper of ozone, like you can smell just before the setting sun sets the clouds on fire.

Kris knows, even before turns his head, who's sitting in the corner booth.

It's a whole parcel of them this time. Because no one is going to tell Kris those aren't other dragons -- he's only met one so far, but he knows the type. These beautiful people, with their lithe, entwining limbs and their complicated hair, are it. Plus Allison is over there, talking with at least four of them at once while a young man braids feathers onto her jacket pull, looking like a cat who fell into cream.

In the middle of it all is Adam, who is smiling. Only that's such a small word to describe the expression on his face, the wonder and happiness that makes him look almost boyish. He's twisting in his seat as if he'd like to stand, except gloved and be-ringed and even be-ribboned hands keep pulling him down to the sound of laughter, as the other dragons sneak looks at what's making him so eager. Adam doesn't seem to mind all that much -- he laughs along with them. But he never takes his eyes away from Kris.

"I knew I could sneak them in before you got back," Katy gloats at Kris's elbow.

"How..."

"Conditional probation from quarantine in recognition of exemplary services rendered to a daughter of the throne. The paperwork took _forever_ , but his clan can travel freely as long as they stay undercover like the rest of us." He looks at her, and she raises an eyebrow. "I know, I know, but it'll be easier to extend that to the rest of the dragons once this bunch show off their good behavior. And it's just to this dimension, for now, but we figured this was the important one." She inclines her head. "Me and Allison. I had to take her to court to serve as a witness, and I think she was bitten by the political bug."

"Daughter of the throne?" he says. "I thought the hierarchy had evolved, and you weren't really a princess."

"Please. I'll always be a princess."

The rest of the cafe's regular patrons are huddle together in tight groups for safety. Eyes wide as they stare at the antics of the dragon band, they look like the victims of an imminent invasion. If they had a white flag they would wave it.

"Anyway," Katy resumes, "a few impatient people have already impatiently ordered, but I don't think anyone would mind if you went over to say hi. You know, as the cook." Her grin is wicked. "You're on the clock, Kristopher, don't let me catch you slacking off."

She turns after taking two steps toward the kitchen. "One more thing," she says, "Allison will be doing this, well, I guess you could call it an internship at the imperial court. Basically she's training to be my representative when she graduates, so I don't see much point in returning from exile. And given recent events, I don't think it's too much to ask for a promotion. Say, co-owner?" She watches him watch the dragons, nods to herself before walking away. "I'll let you think it over."

Adam has been holding his gaze since the moment walked in. Kris wants to go to him. More than anything. But he also knows if he doesn't do this now right now, right this second, before he thinks about it too long or loses his nerve...

He makes a beeline for the kitchen and doesn't linger on Adam's bewildered face. He grabs the first clean glass he can, doesn't wish for something fancier or more special as he fills it at the sink. He _especially_ doesn't pay attention to the expressions of the other dragons, of Allison, as he approaches their table, but of course he would end up having to do this in front of a bunch of gorgeous and intimidating strangers because that's so his life.

He plunks the water down in front of Adam, hands shaking enough that they come away wet. He forces himself to meet Adam's eyes as he straightens, dimly aware of the rising whoops and scattered applause from the table's other occupants as they realize what he's done.

Adam stares at him. 

"So, um," Kris says. 

They both look down at the glass of water.

Kris bolts. 

Later he swears he entered a fugue state, because he can't remember anything until he's at the stove plating the latest order. He pauses with his back against the kitchen door, barely conscious of how the hot dishes scald his hands. He tells himself: it doesn't matter what he sees when he opens the door, empty glass or full. Whatever Adam chooses, at least he's _here_ , he's in Kris's life. Maybe there's even more Kris doesn't know about (now that he's up to speed on the whole "hi, I'm not really human and I was sent to kill your best friend" thing), and Adam has reasons not to... it doesn't matter. Well, okay, it matters, but it isn't the point. Kris is just tired of secrets, and holding back. He's come clean. Whatever happens after this, Kris can live with it.

He _can_ , he tells himself, and leans back into the opening door.

The drum roll starts as he re-emerges: dragons (and Allison) pounding their fists against the table, the same one Adam is now _standing_ on (Kris is going to kill him) with his arms outstretched. Kris has a second to think, this is what I get for trying to top Mr. Drama at dramatic gestures, before the dragon raises the glass to his lips. He tips his whole head back as he drinks, swallows, and swallows, and keeps swallowing --

\-- the dragons leave off pounding to erupt into cheers and catcalls--

\-- the barest trickle of water escaping to trail down the sharp edge of Adam's jaw to fall down his neck in a shining line --

\-- Katy is rolling her eyes so hard it's almost audible, and Kris falls against the door frame laughing --

\-- Adam finishes, and Kris is sure his face is on fire. The dragon presents the empty glass to the cafe, indicating with his other hand like a game show host. He bows, an there's a round of not-so-grudging applause from the regulars, who appear resigned to their new overlords. Kris can see everyone else in the cafe deciding in future to get their coffee somewhere quiet.

Adam climbs down from the table (seriously, from now on _he's_ on Lysol duty) smiling to beat the band, but Katy snags Kris's arm in some kind of elven death grip. 

"If you leave me alone during the dinner shift, Kris, I will end you," she warns. He'd protest, but she's looking wild around the eyes and she's probably right. If he goes over there he's done for the day, he can see it in Adam's face. And he really can't do that. 

His stomach twists as he looks back to Adam. The dragon cocks his head in a question. Kris shrugs, indicates the room filled with diners, the jingling zodiac chain that heralds more coming. Adam considers. He smiles -- a little rueful, but it doesn't look that disappointed. He meets Kris's eyes again and the smile changes, becomes something warm and private. _Later_ , the dragon mouths, still watching Kris like he's prey.

They have the time, now.

He slides a plate onto the counter and taps the bell, because, heck, Kris feels like making a little joyful noise. And no matter who drags their drama in here -- princesses, evil magicians, or dragons -- it's still his darn cafe.

"Order up," he calls out, and gets back to work.


End file.
